Junior Kindergarten is a systemic program which recognizes that research and early successes are proving that JK is a strong component in a child’s early development and growth. The Junior-Kindergarten curriculum considers the whole scholar in a developmentally appropriate manner. Research shows us that certain behaviors, language, and intellectual abilities are typically characteristic of and associated with a specific chronological age. Junior Kindergarten is designed to provide scholars with adequate time to acquire the fine motor skills necessary for writing, the attention span to remain seated and focused, and the social skills necessary to interact in the structured environment of the classroom.
Adjusting to the routines of a kindergarten school day is an essential skill for children entering SJES Lower School. In this program, scholars have Junior Kindergarten and kindergarten-level learning experiences in reading, writing, and math that are presented using the outside world as a learning environment. Every lesson focuses on active learning, oral language, and continuing to apply the Spalding Phonics concepts to provide strong phonemic awareness as the foundation for reading and writing. This classroom provides scholars with a strong focus on:
- Following multi-step instructions
- Finding multiple ways to solve problems
- Organizing work
- Controlling impulses and sustaining attention
JK is a safe, play-based, quality early learning program that includes activities such as:
The use of the Elements of Depth and Complexity encourages higher order thinking as scholars ponder, experience, and learn from the world around them. Scholarly behaviors help Junior-Kindergarten scholars develop behaviors that increase learning. Individualized instruction is realized as learning opportunities are developed using Multiple Intelligences.
Junior Kindergarten scholars are taught to continue to look at the world through the Global Theme lens of Order. Through literature, conversations, and learning activities, scholars develop an understanding of the following essential, conceptual truths (generalizations):
- Order has a beginning, middle, and end.
- Order demands respect and cooperation.
- Order provides structure and safety.
- Order follows rules.
- Order allows for predictions.
- Order brings about change.
Junior Kindergarten scholars continue to learn and acquire the skills introduced in early education in Movement and Coordination and Social and Emotional Development. The Junior Kindergarten Curriculum cycles through the skills learned in Pre-Kindergarten with an emphasis on mastery of the initial skills and introduction of basic Kindergarten skills. The primary goal is for scholars to have a strong understanding of oral and written language development, math processes, and the organizational skills need to have a strong foundation entering Kindergarten.
Movement and Coordination
The basic goal of the Junior Kindergarten program asks the scholars to control their bodies in order to stop and start movement according to a signal, maintain balance, move through space, throw and kick objects, and move cooperatively with others.
Physical Attention and Relaxation
- Order has a beginning, middle, and end.
- Order demands respect and cooperation.
- Order provides structure and safety.
- Order follows rules.
- Order allows for predictions.
- Order brings about change.
Gross Motor Skills
- Maintain balance while walking forward, backwards, and sideways.
- Move through space using various movements.
- Move through space by completing a circuit or obstacle course
Coordination
- Throw or kick an object with increasing accuracy at identified targets.
- Play catch using a large ball.
- Ride a tricycle.
- Maintain momentum on a swing by pumping
Group Games
- Play group games.
- Interact cooperatively.
Using the Body Expressively
- Act out a nursery rhyme, poem, or fingerplay.
- Mimic actions and follow cues
Social and Emotional Development
The basic goals for social and emotional development focus on skills that enable the Junior Kinder scholar to function independently within the social setting of the class group.
Autonomy
- Draw a dimensional picture of a person.
- Care for personal needs by dressing independently.
- Identify and label emotions.
- Use acceptable methods of expressing anger.
Work Habits
- Memorize address, phone number and date of birth.
- Carry out multi-step oral directions.
- Choose and use a toy or do an activity independently.
- Organize and plan what is needed to carry out a project or task.
- Describe and evaluate one’s own work.
Social Skills
- Recognize and call school personnel by name.
- Ask adult for help appropriately.
- Demonstrate observable listening behaviors.
- Identify and follow classroom rules.
- Offer assistance to another scholar.
- Carry out certain chores that contribute to the group.
- Respect the personal belongings and property of others.
- Share and take turns.
- Follow rules for simple games.
- Ignore inappropriate peer behavior.
- Accept consequences of actions.
- Use words to solve problems and conflicts.
- Complete an activity or project in conjunction with another scholar or small group.
Language
In terms of language development, the primary focus during the Junior Kindergarten is on oral language development, phonemic awareness, writing skills, vocabulary development, and continuing to stress and build the foundation for written language development. This development is stimulated through the following areas:
Oral Language, Nursery Rhymes, Poems, Fingerplays, and Songs, Storybook Reading and Storytelling, Emerging Literacy Skills in Reading and Writing
Quarter 1 Objectives
- Identify and express physical sensations, mental states, and emotional feelings.
- Show understanding of temporal words/Use temporal words
- Use increasingly precise verbs related to eating, movement, and the five senses
- Point to a circle, square, triangle, and rectangle
- Predict events in a story, i.e., what will happen next.
- Predict a story ending consistent with other given story events.
- Use a simplified illustrated schedule of activities to indicate which activity preceded and which will follow an activity
- Dictate a description to accompany one’s drawing of people, objects, events, or activities, derived from one’s experience or imagination.
- Follow simple, illustrated recipe.
- Represent “in written form,” following an actual experience: diagonal line, zigzag line, circle, spiral, moon, cross, cane, hook, bowl, bridge, wave, x, star.
- Write one’s first name, using upper- and lowercase letters appropriately.
- Copy letter formation of CVC words.
- Use invented spelling
- Understand print has meaning
- Identify initial letter sound.
- Match rhyming sounds
- Author study: Patricia Pollaco, Stephen Kellogg, Mother Goose
Quarter 2 Objectives
- Describe an event that has already taken place outside the immediate place and time.
- Use the future tense verb
- Sequence and describe three to give images of events or phrases of a single event that has been experienced.
- Assume a different role or perspective and express different possibilities, imaginary or realistic
- Name opposites, big/little, cold/hot, dry/wet, fast/slow, rough/smooth, full/empty, hard/soft, large/small, loud/quiet, on/off, open/close, tall/short, yes/no
- Using familiar rhymes, poems, or songs, finish a recitation that has begun with the correct rhyming word.
- “Read”/tell a story based on the illustrations of a book with text that has not been read aloud previously.
- *Answer who, what, where, when, and why questions about a read-aloud
- Associate spoken and written language by matching written labels with spoken words.
- Point to words as distance units on a page of print.
- Segment a spoken sentence into separate distinct words
- Draw and use motifs: horizontal line, vertical line, diagonal line, zigzag line, circle, spiral, moon, cross, cane, hook, bowl, bridge, wave, star, etc.
Quarter 3 Objectives
- Storytelling sequence: recite beginning, middle, and end.
- Identify author and illustrator, setting, characters, plot
- Develop understanding of how print works within a book, print represents words that can be read; identify print in signs, letters, price tags. Create a print rich environment allowing optimal print exposure; print goes from left to right, identify top, bottom and middle of the page.
- Learn the meanings and appropriate uses of the sayings and phrases for alliteration, figurative, literal, proverb, repetition
- Write the letters of the alphabet/utilize word walls and print environment in order to make words during writer workshop/understanding difference between p,q,b,d / u,n / w,m / r,n,h
Quarter 4 Objectives
- Scholars will learn words are made up of a sequence of smaller, individual sounds. Words consists of unique sequences of phonemes; words are distinguished from one another by their phonemes; Some words begin or end with the same sounds; Individual letters and letter combinations represent specific sounds; Sounds and syllables can be blended to make words; Words can be broken up, or segmented, into sound segments; Groups of letters can be combined to form specific letter-sound patterns
- Mother Goose and other traditional poems contain rhyming words, or words that end with the same sounds.
- Listen for rhythm or a pattern of sound
- Scholars will learn that stories are a kind of fiction, or narrative that comes from a writer’s imagination, and stories can be folktales, fairy tales, myths, legends, or trickster tales
Mathematics
Mathematical thinking is developed through concrete objects and then pictures. Junior Kindergarten scholars move from concrete experience, developing a deep understanding of number sense and number properties, and moving to symbolic representation of the major strands of mathematics. Scholars begin development of problem solving techniques and math study through the following areas of application of math skills:
Patterns and Classification, Geometry and Measurement, Numbers and Number Sense, Computation, Money
Quarter 1 Objectives
- Verbally label the single common attribute or characteristic of a group of objects or pictures.
- Verbally label the difference or criteria used for classification of several groups of objects or pictures
- Given a sample object/ pictures and verbal description of the selection criteria, sort objects/pictures according to a single
- Criterion: sort by size(small, medium, large)
- Classify by size
- Classify by function
- Classify by other conceptual categories.
- Count groups of objects with up to ten items per group
- Given an oral number, create a group with the correct number of objects, up to ten objects.
- Practice zero as an empty set.
- Practice writing numbers to ten
- Compare quantity to symbol using tactile strengths
Quarter 2 Objectives
- Compare pairs of objects: mass: heavy-light
- Compare pairs of objects: temperature: hot-cold
- Use an arbitrary tool of measurement to compare the length and height of objects using comparative vocabulary (longer-taller-shorter).
- Compare pairs of objects: large-small, thick-thin, wide-narrow
- Organize and read quantitative data in simple bar graphs.
- Identify and count up to 20 pennies.
- Count groups of objects with up to five items per group.
- Use Rekenrek to identify quantity to number relation
- Practice writing numbers to 20
- Place value ones, tens, and hundreds
Quarter 3 Objectives
- Compare concrete objects and pictorial representations in sets: same as, equal to, more than, less than, most, lease
- Count forward from 1-31 first beginning with 1 and later from any given number; backward from 10; from 1-10 by twos; by fives and tens to 50
- Recognize and write numbers 1-31 (with special attention to the difference between certain written symbols, such as 6,9,2,5,1,7,12,21, etc.
- Count and write the numbers of objects in a set
- Given a number, identify one more, one less
- Identify ordinal position, first through sixth, and pairs
- Interpret simple pictorial graphs
- Identify ½ as one of two equal parts of a region or object, and find ½ of a set of a concrete objects
- Place value ones, tens, hundreds, thousands
Quarter 4 Objectives
- Identify pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and the one dollar bill
- Identify the dollar sign and the cent sign
- Write money amounts using the cent signs
- Add and subtract to 10, using concrete objects
- Recognize the meaning of the plus sign
- Subtraction is the concept of taking away
- Recognize the meaning of the minus sign
- Identify familiar instruments of measurement: ruler, scale, thermometer
- Compare objects according to linear measure, weight, capacity, temperature, and time.
- Identify left and right hand, identify top, middle, and bottom
- User terms of orientation and relative position
- Identify and sort basic plane figures, square, triangle, rectangle, circle
- Identify basic shapes in common objects
History and Geography
The basic goals of the Junior Kindergarten program is to develop a sense of time and an orientation as it relates to self, family, school, the community and the world around us. Scholars are asked to consider time in terms of days, months, and years, as well as past, present, and future. The development of a sense of orientation in space provides a context and vocabulary for instruction in geometry and geography. The following areas of study promote understanding and application of space and time.
Orientation in Time -Vocabulary, Measures of Time, Passage of Time Orientation in Space-Vocabulary, Actual and Representational Space, Simple Maps, Basic Concepts
Quarter 1 Objectives
- Intro to time, days of the week/months of the year
- Introduce Casey Jones (tall tales)
- Sayings and phrases
- Halloween
- Directionality: Left/Right, N.S.E.W
Quarter 2 Objectives
- Use a monthly calendar to locate birthday and day of the week.
- Reproduce a design represented on a pattern card, parquetry block and three dimensional patterns.
- Introduce Hemisphere map and locate seven continents.
- Identify North America as our continent.
- Introduce North American object box for tactile exploration.
- Identify flags of Canada, United States, Mexico, and Greenland.
- Introduce South American continent and object box.
- Seasons of the year
- Personal time lines
- Thanksgiving
- Introduction to the clock, telling time to the hour.
- Discover holidays around the world, Christmas, Martin Luther King, black history, pilgrims, mayflower, democracy.
Quarter 3 Objectives
- Use a schedule to help navigate the daily routine
- Tell time to the hour
- Reproduce a design represented on a pattern card, parquetry block and three dimensional patterns
- Find subsets using attribute blocks, using a vin diagram arrange attribute blocks
- Introduce Africa, Antarctica, Asia maps.
- Introduce the object boxes associated with each continent.
- Identify flags for Africa, Antarctica, and Asia.
- Introduce attributes of an isthmus/strait.
- Fossils and Egyptian archaeology discovery.
- Celebrate Texas (our state), Presidents’ Day, Valentine’s Day
Quarter 4 Objectives
- Identify what maps and globes represent and how they are used.
- Identify the location of all major oceans
- Understand the meaning of some basic terms of spatial orientation necessary for working with maps
- Introduce Australia and oceans
- Easter, Earth Day, Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, and teddy bear day
Science
Science in the Junior Kindergarten year continues to encourage scholars to use a systematic way of looking at, describing and explaining the world around them. This systematic approach may be summarized as: (1) reflect and ask questions, (2) plan an activity and predict what will happen, (3) carry out the activity and observe what happens, and (4) report findings (words, drawings, displays, photos, etc.) and reflect on other related questions. This is the beginning of application of the scientific method in the following areas:
Human Characteristics, Needs, and Development, Animal Characteristics, Needs, and Development, Plant Characteristics, Needs, and Development, Physical Elements-Air, Water, Light, Introduction to Magnetism, Seasons and Weather, Taking Care of the Earth, Scientific Tools
Quarter 1 Objectives
- Identify and describe basic needs: food and drink.
- Identify and describe basic needs: shelter and protection from temperature and weather.
- Nail, join wood: hammer: select and use appropriate tool to complete a task.
- Verbally label the Solar System
- Label parts of the earth
- Identify living and non-living things.
- Use images to understand nutrition/health
- Plants/Animals
- Skeleton
- Observation, Classification, Magnetism
- Solid/Liquid/Gas
- Sink/Float
Quarter 2 Objectives
- Plant care, and record basic properties of light, its presence, and effects in the physical world.
- Dig a hole: trowel, shovel: Select and use appropriate tools to complete a task
- Identify parts of a tree, leaf identification,
- Discover fish, amphibians and reptiles: parts of, habitats, classification
- Weights and temperature as a form of measurement.
- Compare heavy-light using a scale.
- Diffusion/color mix
Quarter 3 Objectives
- Excavation, plotting points on a grid, locating point of excavation: use of tools, chisel, dirt brush, soft ice pick, sifter
- Dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals
- Discovery of mammals/Armadillo
- Care of teeth, function of heart and location
- Growing seeds, roots, and stems, ornithology
- Fossils (excavation of and assembling)
- Astronomy/Constellations, phases of the moon
- Rocks and crystals
- Diffusion/Color Mix, Measurement, Dilution
Quarter 4 Objectives
- Discover flowers (parts of) and insects.
- Follow the life cycle of a butterfly, frog, and chicks. Identify basic differences between vertebrate/invertebrate; oviparous/viviparous
- Study chemical reactions, recycle paper, discover electricity
- Study the lives and scientific achievements of: Albert Einstein, George Washington Carver, Jacques Cousteau, Wilber and Orville Wright, Jane Goodall
Visual Arts
The basic goal of the visual arts program is to encourage scholars to attend to visual details, as well as to create, examine, and discuss art in the following ways:
Attention to Visual Detail, Exploration and Creation, Art Appreciation
Quarter 1 Objectives
- Identify from memory the color of objects from nature, when not in view.
- Demonstrate memory of visual details by playing “Concentration” type memory games
- Examine a work of art by a known artist and create a work “in the style of …” O’Keeffe, Monet
- Cut: Use Various tools and techniques in completing art projects
Quarter 2 Objectives
- Identify the colors in a rainbow.
- Demonstrate memory of visual details by playing concentration type memory games using still life, portrait and landscape art representations.
- Examine a work of art by a known artist and create a work of are in the style of: Jackson Pollock, Frank Lloyd Wright, Di Vinci.
- Create Christmas project.
Quarter 3 Objectives
- Arrange paper in the style of Japanese origami.
- Scholars will locate artists by region and match art to artists.
- Examine work by a known artist and create a work of art in the style of: Di Vinci, Hokusai, Van Gogh
- Create Spring Fling art project to be sold at auction.
Quarter 4 Objectives
- Create art murals in the style of aboriginal dot art.
- Examine works by Paul Klee and Alexander Calder
Music
The basic goals of the Junior Kindergarten music program asks scholars to listen to, identify, and imitate sounds, sing songs individually and with others, and move interpretatively to music through application in the following areas:
Attention to Differences in Sound, Imitate and Produce Sound, Listen to and Sing Songs, Listen to and Move to Music
Quarter 1 Objectives
- Listen to environmental sounds presented sequentially as a “sound story” and describe the events in context in which they are occurring.
- Use musical instruments or other objects to imitate a sequence of three or more sounds made by more than one instrument
- Examine music by: Beethoven, Bach
Quarter 2 Objectives
- Listen to “sound story” and identify mood/emotion.
- Use musical instruments or other objects to imitate a sequence of three or more sounds.
- Play bells using color cards.
- Examine music by Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Joplin
Quarter 3 Objectives
- Listen to music and tune.
- Match sounds
- Examine music by: Louis Armstrong, Sergei Prokofiev
Quarter 4 Objectives
- Listen to music by Mozart and Duke Ellington
The curriculum for the Kindergarten at St. James Episcopal School is designed to utilize the Elements of Depth and Complexity in combination with Multiple Intelligences to provide a high cognitive level experience aligned with private school curricular standards. The program provides diverse opportunities for scholars to develop to their fullest through first hand experiences. An important goal of the Kindergarten program is to create a love of learning through relationships, encouragement, and structured play.
Kindergarten scholars are taught to look at the world through the Global Theme of Patterns, identifying the following essential, conceptual truths (generalizations):
- Patterns can be natural or man-made.
- Patterns are subject to change.
- Patterns provide structure.
- Patterns allow for predictions.
- Patterns repeat.
- Patterns have rules.
- Patterns may have symmetry.
- Patterns communicate or tell a story.
Language Arts
The language arts approach in Kindergarten is built upon a combined approach offering both balanced literacy and direct phonics instruction. The marriage of these two curriculums: Spalding Integrated Language Arts and Houghton-Mifflin Journey’s, exposes scholars to grammar concepts, writing skills, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension and fluency.
Listening and Speaking
- Identify and apply spatial and temporal relationships
- Use narrative language to describe
- Discuss and use common sayings
- Follow multi-step, oral directions.
- Give simple directions.
- Provide simple explanations.
- Recite a nursery rhyme, poem, or song independently.
- Present a short oral report to peers.
Reading
- Listen to and understand a variety of texts read aloud.
- Describe illustrations.
- Sequence four to six pictures illustrating events.
- Ask and answer questions requiring literal recall and understanding details.
- Ask and answer questions to clarify information.
- Use narrative language to describe people, places, things, locations, events, and actions
- Compare and contrast similarities and differences.
- Make personal connections to events or experiences in a read-aloud
- Use pictures accompanying the read-aloud to check and support understanding.
- Make predictions prior to and during a read-aloud
- Ask and answer questions that require interpretations, judgments, or opinions.
- Create and tell an original story.
- Understand literary terms.
- Discuss important facts and information from a nonfiction read-aloud.
- Identify parts and the function of books.
- Use correct book orientation.
- Recognize that sentences in print are made up of separate words.
- Understand words are separated by spaces.
- Distinguish letters, words, sentences, and stories.
- Use upper and lower-case forms of the alphabet.
Phonemic Awareness
- Orally segment sentences into individual words.
- Understand words are made up of sound sequences.
- Recognize initial/medial/final position of phonemes in a spoken word.
- Identify whether pairs of phonemes are the same or different.
- Orally blend two to three sounds to form a word.
- Segment a spoken word into phonemes.
- Produce rhyming words.
- Identify the number of syllables.
- Recognize the relationship between written letters (graphemes) and spoken sounds (phonemes).
- Blend individual phonemes to pronounce printed words.
- Understand that sometimes two or more printed letters stand for a single sound.
- Read consonant-vowel-consonant words.
- Read high frequency words.
- Recognize, speak, and write phonogram sounds as outlined in Spalding’s The Writing Road to Reading including single and multi-letter phonograms.
- Maintain a spelling notebook with high-frequency words to be written independently.
- Recognize and apply phonic rules including the jobs of silent final e.
- Use commas and end punctuation while reading orally.
Writing
- Draw pictures to represent a text.
- Draw pictures to represent a preference or opinion.
- Write narratives, informative, and explanatory texts.
- Add details to writing with assistance.
- Create a title or caption to accompany a picture and/or shared writing.
- Apply phonetic spelling to write independently.
- Use upper and lower-case letters in first and last names and in simple messages.
Language Conventions
- Use letters, words, phrases, and sentences to communicate thoughts and ideas.
- Apply basic spelling conventions.
- Capitalize and punctuate sentences.
- Write from left to right, leaving spaces between words, and top to bottom, using return sweep.
- Offer phonemically plausible spellings for words.
- Capitalize first word in a sentence and the pronoun I.
Poetry
- Read and memorize Mother Goose and other traditional poems.
- Identify and use rhyming words or words that end with the same sounds.
- Identify and use rhythm or a pattern of sound.
- Use alliteration.
- Identify characters and dialogue.
- Maintain a poetry notebook.
Sayings and Phrases
- Use sayings, phrases, and proverbs appropriately.
History and Geography
In Kindergarten, children study aspects of the world around them including the family, the school, and the community. The history and geography program in Kindergarten is meant to complement and extend that focus. The goal of studying selected topics in world history is to foster curiosity and begin understandings about the larger world outside the child’s immediate community including varied civilizations and ways of life. This is presented through stories, drama, art, music, and discussion.
World Geography-Spatial Sense
- Geographical awareness
- Maps and globes: what they represent, how we use them
- Specific areas on maps and globes
Overview of the Seven Continents
- Identify and locate seven continents on a map and globe.
American Geography
- Differentiate state, city, town, and community.
- Locate North America, the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii.
Native American Peoples, Past, and Present
- Study Native American peoples in different regions.
- Incorporate in-depth study of at least one specific group of Native Americans-past and present.
Early Exploration and Settlement
- The Voyage of Columbus in 1492
- Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain
- The Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria
- Columbus’ mistaken identification of “Indies” and “Indians”
- The idea of what was, for Europeans, a “New World”
- The Pilgrims
- The Mayflower
- Plymouth Rock
- Thanksgiving Day celebration
- July 4, “Independence Day”
- The “birthday” of our nation
- Democracy (rule of the people): Americans wanted to rule themselves instead of being ruled by a faraway king.
- People who were not free-slavery in early America
Presidents Past and Present
- Famous Presidents
- George Washington
- Thomas Jefferson, author of Declaration of Independence
- Abraham Lincoln
- Theodore Roosevelt
- The way one becomes a president and what the president does
- Current United States President
Symbols and Figures
- American flag
- Statue of Liberty
- Mount Rushmore
- The White House
Science
Integrated themes in Kindergarten science are identified as the focus of instruction for extended periods of time. In classroom and out of classroom experiences serve as laboratories for exploring, classifying, making predictions, and recording outcomes of scientific data by word and illustration. Science activities are designed so scholars will discern patterns in the biological and physical world.
Plants and Plant Growth
- What plants need to live
- Basic parts of plants
- Two kinds of plants: deciduous and evergreen
- Food from plants
Animals and Their Needs
- Common characteristics and needs of animals
- What animals need to live
- Offspring of animals
- Special needs of animals and pets
The Human Body-The Five Senses and Taking Care of Your Body
- Sight: eyes
- Hearing: ears
- Smell: nose
- Taste: tongue
- Touch: skin
- Taking care of your body
Introduction to Magnetism
- Experiments with magnets
- Familiar everyday uses of magnets
- Materials attracted by magnets
Seasons and Weather
- The four seasons
- Local weather patterns
- The sun
- Daily weather changes
- Temperature and thermometers
- Clouds
- Rain, thunderstorms, and hail
- Snow, snowflakes, and blizzards
Taking Care of the Earth
- Conservation
- Practical measures for conserving energy and resources
- Recycling
- Pollution
Science Biographies
- George Washington Carver
- Jane Goodall
- Wilbur and Orville Wright
Math
The math program in Kindergarten enables scholars to solve problems using deep number sense and a hands-on approach. Using the Saddler-Oxford Progress in Mathematics text and workbook combined with Singapore Math, scholars solve meaningful problems. Math manipulatives are integrated into guided and independent practice. Daily calendar math routines are integrated with math skills.
Patterns and Classification
- Sort by size, color and shape, two ways.
- Patterns of color, shape, and size
- Grow, transfer, identify, and create patterns.
- Calendar
- Positions (above, below, top, middle, bottom, over, under, left, right, inside, outside)
- Tell time to the hour.
- Sequencing
Number Sense
- Identify, order, write numbers 0-100.
- Form equal sets.
- Use a number line.
- Estimate groups.
- Count objects in a set.
- Ordinal positions to the 10th place
- Place value- ones, tens, hundreds
- Tally marks
- Simple graphs and charts
- Fractions-whole, half, fourth
- Symmetry
- Even and odd numbers
Money
- Recognize and add pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.
- Fair trade for coins
- Add and subtract coins
- Compare money
- Dollar and cent signs
Computation
- Join groups
- Count by 5s, 10s, 2s
- Single-digit addition
- Part to whole relationships
- Single-digit subtraction
- Addition and subtraction patterns
- Ten frames to add and subtract
- Problem solving strategies and choosing operations
Measurement
- Compare size, length, and height.
- Non-standard measures
- Length and distance around
- Compare and order by weight and capacity.
- Read a thermometer.
Geometry
- Three dimensional shapes
- Moving shapes
- Plane figures on solids
- Combine and separate figures.
Kindergarten Curriculum Map
The First Grade curriculum at St. James Episcopal School addresses the needs of the whole child—cognitive, spiritual, social, emotional, physical, and aesthetic. It is developmentally appropriate and academically rigorous, with high expectations for growth and success. Learning opportunities grounded in Multiple Intelligences research allow scholars to develop to their fullest potential through diverse, hands-on experiences. This ensures that the learning needs of all children will be met, and progress will be made in all areas. The 3R’s—Rules, Respect, and Responsibility are emphasized at all times during the school day. Interdisciplinary instruction which utilizes the Elements of Depth and Complexity provides an engaging, challenging cognitive experience across the disciplines of language, math, science, and social studies, and in areas of enrichment such as religion, Spanish, technology, and fine arts.
First Grade scholars are taught to look at the world through the Global Theme lens of Systems, identifying the following essential, conceptual truths (generalizations):
- Systems work to complete a task.
- Systems have parts that work together.
- A system’s structure depends on its function.
- Systems follow rules.
- Systems can be natural or person-made.
- Systems can have positive or negative effects.
Language Arts
Literacy is highly correlated with scholars’ oral language proficiency, and the ability to understand a text read aloud is a prerequisite for making sense of the same text in printed form. The language arts curriculum in First Grade is built upon daily oral language development, the Spalding Method of direct phonics instruction (for writing and reading), and daily exposure to printed text (Houghton-Mifflin Journeys and children’s fine literature). This ensures a strong foundation in vocabulary, handwriting, grammar concepts, writing, and reading. Because Core Knowledge strongly recommends daily read-alouds that are meaningful and focus on a single topic over a sustained period of time, literature selections and writing prompts are chosen around thematic unit topics.
Listening and Speaking
Classroom Discussion
- Speak clearly with appropriate volume, eye contact, and courtesy.
- Ask questions to clarify and follow rules for group discussions.
- Understand and use language to express spatial and temporal relationships and identify and express physical sensations, mental states, and emotions of self and others.
- Understand and use descriptive language, common sayings, and phrases.
Presentation of Ideas and Information
- Follow multi-step oral directions, give simple directions, and provide simple explanations.
- Memorize and recite Bible verses and short poems independently.
- Give oral presentations about topics of interest, using appropriate eye contact, volume, and clear enunciation.
Comprehension and Discussion of Read-Alouds (all texts)
- Listen to and understand a variety of texts read aloud including fictional stories, fairy tales, fables, historical narratives, drama, informational text, and poems.
- Distinguish the following genres of literature: fiction (narrative), nonfiction (informative), and drama.
- Describe illustrations and sequence four to six pictures.
- Answer questions requiring understanding of the key details and/or facts.
- Answer questions that require making interpretations, judgments, predictions, or giving opinions about what is heard.
- Understand and use words and phrases heard in read-alouds.
- Compare and contrast similarities and differences and make connections to events or experiences in read-alouds.
- Interpret information that is presented orally and then ask additional questions to clarify information or the topic in the read-alouds.
- Compare and contrast, retell, or dramatize stories, using narrative language to describe characters, setting, and sequence of events.
- Create and tell an original story using narrative language to describe characters, setting, and sequence.
- Identify the moral or lesson of a fable, folktale, or myth.
- Demonstrate understanding and use literary language to retell and/or create stories.
- Identify sensory language and how it is used to describe.
Reading
Phonemic Awareness
- Given a pair of spoken words, select the one that is longer (contains more phonemes).
- Identify the number of syllables in a spoken word.
- Indicate whether a target phoneme is or is not present in the initial/medial/final position of a spoken word.
- Orally blend sounds to form a word.
- Segment a spoken word into phonemes.
- Given a spoken word, produce another word that rhymes.
Phonics: Decoding and Encoding
- Blend individual phonemes to pronounce printed words.
- Understand that sometimes two or more printed letters stand for a single sound, and that two or more phonograms might produce the same spoken sound.
- Demonstrate understanding that a systematic, predictable relationship exists between written letters and spoken sounds. The relationship creates the 71 (Spalding) phonograms covered in First Grade, and the Spalding rules for phonogram spelling and reading.
- Read one to two syllable words containing the Spalding phonograms.
- Read and write words with inflectional endings.
- Read, understand, and write contractions.
- Read and spell chains of one-syllable words in which one sound is added, substituted, or omitted.
Oral Reading and Fluency
- Read at least 50 words generally identified as high frequency words.
- Read decodable stories that incorporate specific code knowledge.
- Demonstrate increased accuracy, fluency, and expression on successive readings of decodable text.
- Use phonics skills in conjunction with context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding.
- Use commas and end punctuation as inflection cues.
- Read aloud, alone, or with a partner.
Reading Comprehension (all texts)
- Demonstrate understanding of completely decodable text after reading independently.
- Sequence four to six pictures illustrating events.
- Answer questions requiring literal recall and understanding of the details and/or facts.
- Retell key details from a text read independently.
Writing
Writing to Reflect Audience, Purpose and Task
- Use details when writing original sentences.
- Express an opinion or point of view and support with evidence.
- Write a descriptive paragraph.
- Create a title and an ending relevant to paragraphs.
- Write or retell a story.
- Write about a research topic including beginning and ending sentences and facts or examples relevant to the topic
- Begin to use tools, including technology, to plan, draft, and edit writing.
Language Conventions
- Print from memory the 26 letters of the alphabet using Spalding upper and lower-case forms.
- Form words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs.
- Use basic capitalization, punctuation, and spelling conventions.
- Use commas appropriately in greetings and closings of letters, dates, and items in a series.
- Write on primary lined paper from left to right, staying within the lines and leaving spaces between words, from top to bottom using return sweep.
- Recognize, identify, and use common and proper nouns and adjectives, orally and in written text.
- Recognize, identify, and use subject, object, and possessive pronouns.
- Recognize, identify, and use regular verbs to convey a sense of tense.
- Recognize, identify, and use subjects and predicates.
- Recognize, identify, and use statements, questions, and exclamations.
- Identify and use synonyms and antonyms.
- Capitalize the first word in a sentence, the pronoun I, months, days of the week, paragraph titles, and proper nouns.
- Write a simple friendly letter.
- Use apostrophes to create contractions and indicate possession.
History and Geography
In First Grade, the study of history and geography embraces many topics throughout the Core Knowledge Sequence. The goal of studying selected topics from world history is to foster curiosity and the beginnings of understanding about a larger world outside the scholar’s locality, and about how varied civilizations and ways of life developed over time. This will be accomplished through informative text, stories, drama, art, music, discussion, and exploration of cultural traditions. Geographic knowledge embraces a spatial sense of the world, awareness of the physical processes that shape life, a sense of the interactions between humans and their environment, an understanding of the relationships between place and culture, an awareness of the characteristics of specific regions and cultures, and the opportunity to identify man-made systems at work in the world.
World Geography
Spatial Sense
- Name continent, country, state, and community.
- Understand keys, legends, and symbols on maps.
- Identify characteristics of and advantages for using globes and maps.
- Locate: the seven continents, five oceans, Canada, U.S., Mexico, and Central America on maps and globes.
- State at least one unique detail about each of the seven continents.
Geographical Features of the Earth
- Locate the Equator, cardinal directions, North and South Poles, and Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
- Identify characteristics of peninsula, harbor, bay, island, and gulf.
Ancient World Civilizations
Mesopotamia: Cradle of Civilization
- Explain the significance of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
- Understand the relationship of writing to the development of civilization.
- Know why rules and laws are important to the development of civilization- Code of Hammurabi and early code of laws.
Egypt
- Identify how geography affected the development of Egypt.
- Explain the impact of floods on farming and the development of cities.
- Learn about Egyptian government and religion.
- Explain similarities and differences between hieroglyphs and written English.
History of World Religions
- Explain the difference between polytheism and monotheism.
- Identify characteristics of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The Americas
Early Peoples and Civilizations (Pre-Columbian)
- Understand the land bridge and the arrival of Hunters and nomads from Asia to North America.
- Understand how the movement from hunting to farming affected the development of villages.
- Study three civilizations; Maya, Aztec, and Inca.
- Identify ruins of early cities remaining today.
Exploration and Settlement
- Explain the significance of explorations by Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Hernan Cortes, and Francisco Pizarro.
- Discuss contributions and problems brought to the “New World” by the Spanish.
- Study English colonization in North America.
- Discuss the arrival and role of slaves brought to the “New World”.
The American Revolution
From Colonies to Independence
- Locate the original thirteen colonies.
- Retell the story of the Boston Tea Party and the movement toward independence from England.
- Explain significance of Paul Revere’s ride.
- Recite excerpts from the Declaration of Independence.
- Explain importance of Fourth of July, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, the National Capitol, and Betsy Ross.
Early Exploration of the American West
- Identify Daniel Boone and the Wilderness Road’s contribution to western expansion.
- Explain the significance of the Louisiana Purchase, the expedition of Lewis and Clark, Sacagawea, and the settlers.
- Locate the Appalachian Mountains, Rocky Mountains, and the Mississippi River.
Symbols and Figures
- Recognize and become familiar with the significance of the Liberty Bell, bald eagle, Old Glory, White House, Uncle Sam, modern American flag, fifty states, and the current United States president.
Modern Civilization and Culture: Mexico
Geography
- Locate North America, Mexico and Mexico City, Canada, the United States, Central America, the Yucatan Peninsula, the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Rio Grande River on a map
Culture
- Explain how the Native American (Indian) and Spanish heritages have contributed to American culture.
Science
In First Grade, the science program is a systematic approach to the exploration of science that combines hands-on experience and observation along with utilization of text to provide essential building blocks for deeper future understandings. Scholars develop grade-level appropriate scientific content through asking questions about nature and seeking answers; collecting, comparing, classifying, and measuring things; conducting investigations using the Scientific Method to test hypotheses and make qualitative observations; and discussing findings and conclusions.
The First Grade Science curriculum is inspired by and organized around children’s curiosity about “how things work”. Science provides opportunities to identify natural systems at work in the world, and to use a variety of tools, including technology.
Living Things and Their Environments
Habitats
- Living things live in habitats to which they are particularly suited.
- There are different types of environments (biomes) in the world.
- Biomes provide specific habitats.
- Interdependence explains the relationships between living things.
- Food chain and webs are primary examples of interdependence.
- Plant and animal life on Earth depends upon water, soil, air, sunlight, and nutrients.
- Changes to an environment can be positive or negative.
- Human interaction impacts plant and animal life.
Special Classification of Animals
- Classify animal groups by feeding habits and physical characteristics.
- Endangered and extinct animals result from habitats that no longer promote their survival.
Oceans and Undersea Life
- Explain the ratio of water to land on the Earth.
- Explain the unique characteristics of oceans.
- Discuss the features of the ocean floor.
- Explain the variety and diversity of life in the oceans.
- Discuss dangers to the oceans.
The Human Body
Body Systems
- Study how the human body is a “system of systems” that work together.
- Discuss the skeletal, muscular, digestive, circulatory, and nervous systems.
Preventing Illness
- Being healthy means taking care of the systems of the body.
- Healthy habits include exercise, cleanliness, nutritious foods, rest, and immunizations.
Matter
- Matter comes in three forms and these forms can change states.
- Everything is made up of matter, and all matter is made up of elements.
- Atoms are parts of elements too small to see, made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons.
- Name and give examples of three states of matter.
Properties of Matter
- Measurement
- Objects can be described and classified according to their composition and physical properties.
- Objects can be quantified using systems of measurement that include length, volume, and temperature.
- Systems of measurement use specialized tools.
Astronomy
Introduction to the Solar System
- Name the planets in the solar system in order from the sun.
- Explain that the sun is really a star.
- Know the phases of the moon.
- Know that stars create pictures in the sky called constellations (Big Dipper).
- Explain how the Earth revolves and rotates and the effects of these movements.
The Earth
Geological Features of the Earth
- Describe the layers of the Earth.
- Explain formation of volcanoes and geysers.
- Compare metamorphic, igneous, and sedimentary rocks.
- Identify important minerals in the Earth’s crust.
Science Biographies
Scientists and Their Contributions
- Rachel Carson
- Thomas Edison
- Edward Jenner
- Louis Pasteur
- Steve Jobs
- Steve Wozniak
Math
The First Grade Math at St. James Episcopal School is a program that emphasizes concept development, mental techniques, and problem solving. Math is more than memorizing formulas and fact families. Through this program, scholars learn the “how” and “why” of math, not just the operations. By developing a logical way of thinking using a broad spectrum of manipulatives, scholars build a strong foundation in mathematical thinking and skills.
Patterns and Classification
- Position and direction
- Ordinal Number – naming position
Numbers and Number Sense
- Counting
- Numbers bonds
- Comparing numbers
- Halves and fourths
- Graphs
Money
Computation-Addition, Subtraction, and Solving Problems and Equations
- Addition with number bonds
- Other methods of addition
- Methods of subtraction
- Multiplication
- Division
Measurement
- Comparing and measuring length
- Comparing and measuring weight
Geometry
First Grade Curriculum Map
The Second Grade curriculum provides a clear outline of content to be learned grade by grade so that knowledge and skills build cumulatively from year to year. The Core Knowledge Sequence is distinguished by its specificity. By clearly specifying important knowledge in language arts, history, geography, math, science, and the fine arts, the Sequence presents a practical answer to the question, “What do our children need to know?” Learning opportunities are grounded in the application of Multiple Intelligences and the Interdisciplinary approach to instruction, utilizing the Elements of Depth and Complexity in providing a challenging academic program.
Grade Level Theme
Second Grade scholars are taught to look at the world through the Global Theme lens of Change, identifying the following essential, conceptual truths (generalizations):
- Change has a ripple effect.
- Change occurs over time.
- Change has positive and negative effects.
- Change occurs in patterns.
- Change is constant.
- Change brings about change.
Language Arts
The Language Arts program builds on a solid foundation of phonics and phonemic awareness using the Spalding Method. Scholars are then exposed to literature from a variety of genres and authors using the Core Knowledge program and children’s fine literature.
Listening and Speaking
Classroom Discussion
- Participate in discussions on a variety of topics using agreed upon rules.
- Ask clarifying questions.
- Express physical sensations, emotions of others, and spatial and temporal relationships.
- Use narrative language and common sayings and phrases.
Presentation of ideas and information
- Follow and give simple directions and explanations.
- Recite nursery rhymes, poems, songs, and give oral presentations using eye contact, volume and clear enunciation.
Comprehension and discussion of read-alouds
- Understand a variety of texts read aloud.
- Distinguish reading genres.
- Describe illustrations and use them to support understanding of read-alouds.
- Answer questions requiring literal recall and retell key details.
- Describe, compare, and contrast characters in fiction, drama, and poetry.
- Change story events and provide an alternative ending.
- Create and tell an original story.
- Identify morals or lessons in fables, folktales, and myths.
- Distinguish fantasy and reality in a text.
- Demonstrate understanding of literary and sensory language.
- Use rhyme and rhythm in poetry.
Reading
Phonics
- Decode and encode using the Spalding method.
- Demonstrate understanding of relationship between written symbols and sounds.
- Blend phonemes to pronounce words.
- Read and understand contractions.
- Read at least 100 high-frequency words.
Oral reading and fluency
- Read decodable stories.
- Demonstrate increasing accuracy and fluency.
- Use commas and end punctuation in reading.
Reading comprehension – All texts (fiction, nonfiction, informational text, drama, and poetry)
- Sequence four to six pictures illustrating events from text.
- Summarize selected parts of a text.
- Identify basic features of a book.
- Compare and contrast similarities and differences among texts.
- Make corrections to events or experiences in a text.
- Make predictions.
- Identify temporal words and words that link ideas in a story.
- Generate questions and seek information from multiple sources.
- Interpret information in diagrams, charts, and graphs.
- Categorize and organize information on a topic.
- Create and interpret timelines and lifelines.
Writing
Narrative writing
- Use setting, character, plot, and dialogue in story writing.
- Write a personal narrative.
- Create a title and ending appropriate to the story.
Informative/explanatory writing
- Use facts, examples, and specific steps in writing explanatory text.
- Use linking words to connect ideas.
- Group similar information into paragraphs.
- Use tools including technology to plan, draft, and edit.
- Gather information from text sources.
Persuasive writing (opinion)
- Express an opinion or point of view providing reasons and supporting details.
- Refer to content of text when appropriate.
Language Conventions
Spelling
- Write words, phrases, and details from dictation applying phonics knowledge.
- Alphabetize words to the second letter.
- Use a children’s dictionary.
- Identify and use antonyms, synonyms, homophones, and compound words.
- Parts of speech and sentence structure
- Use subject, object, and possessive pronouns.
- Identify and use correct noun-pronoun agreement.
- Identify and use regular and irregular plural nouns.
- Identify and use articles, adjectives, and adverbs.
- Identify and use subjects and predicates.
- Identify and use statements, questions, and exclamations.
- Identify and use complete and compound sentences.
Capitalization and punctuation
- Capitalize the first word in a sentence, the word I, and proper nouns.
- Use abbreviations and punctuation for the months, days of the week, titles, and addresses.
- Use end punctuation, commas, and apostrophes appropriately.
- Write a simple friendly letter.
Poetry
- Scholars are exposed to old and new poetry appropriate to the grade level.
- Write original poems.
Fiction
- Read a grade-level core of stories to include mythology, folk tales and tall tales.
- Identify literary terms to include myth, tall tale, and limerick
Sayings and Phrases
- Scholars become familiar with a grade-level and culturally specific core of sayings, phrases, and idioms.
History and Geography
Second Grade scholars continue to explore the globe by identifying and locating specific geographical features. Scholars learn history through the study of other civilizations (both ancient and modern). Major events of American history are studied beginning with the Constitution and ending with the Civil Rights era.
World
World Geography
Spatial Sense
- Identify continents, major oceans, four directions, Canada, United States, Mexico, the equator, the four hemispheres, and the poles.
- Understand keys, symbols, and legends.
Geographical Terms and Features
- Review terms from previous grade levels and add coast, valley, prairie, desert, and oasis.
Early Asian Civilizations
Geography of Asia
- Identify Asia as the largest and most populous continent.
- Locate China, India, and Japan.
India
- Locate the Indus and Ganges Rivers.
- Discuss Hinduism and Buddhism.
China
- Locate major rivers and historical landmarks.
- Investigate inventions, contributions, and celebrations.
Modern Japanese Civilization
Geography
- Locate the four islands, water bodies, and capital city of Japan.
Culture
- Identify modern cities and industrial and business centers.
- Investigate symbols, dress, art, and traditions.
The Ancient Greek Civilization
- Locate the Mediterranean Sea, the Aegean Sea, and Crete.
- Investigate the Persian Wars
- Discuss the Olympic Games.
- Read and discuss Greek mythology.
- Identify great Greek thinkers and leaders including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great.
America
American Government-The Constitution
- Explain that the United States government is based on The Constitution.
- Identify James Madison as the “Father of the Constitution”.
- Explain government by the consent of the governed.
The War of 1812
- Identify James and Dolly Madison.
- Discuss important events of the War of 1812.
- Describe Old Ironsides and “The Star Spangled Banner”
Westward Expansion
Pioneers head west.
- Discuss new means of travel to include the steamboat and railroads.
- Locate the routes west.
- Explain the roles of the Erie Canal, the Pony Express, and the Transcontinental Railroad.
Native Americans
- Investigate the Sequoyah and Cherokee alphabets.
- Discuss the forced removal of Native Americans to reservations.
- Explain the effect of the near extermination of buffalo.
The Civil War
- Examine the controversy over slavery.
- Identify the role of Harriet Tubman and the “underground railroad”.
- Identify key figures in the Civil War to include Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Clara Barton, and President Abraham Lincoln
- Discuss the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of slavery.
Immigration and Citizenship
- Explain the perception of the United States as a “land of opportunity”.
- Describe the significance of the Statue of Liberty and the role of Ellis Island.
- Discuss rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
- Investigate the process of becoming an American citizen.
Fighting for a Cause
- Study the issues of equality and civil rights.
- Identify historic and contemporary leaders in the struggle for equality.
Geography of Americas
North America
- Locate North America, Canada, Mexico, Central America, the West Indies, the fifty states of the United States, the current territories of the United States, the Mississippi River, the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains, the Great Lakes, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
South America
- Identify languages spoken in the countries of South America-Spanish and Portuguese.
- Identify Brazil as the largest country in South America.
- Identify and locate the countries of South America, the rain forests, and the Andes Mountains.
Symbols and Figures
- Discuss the significance of the U.S. flag, historical and current, and the Lincoln Memorial.
Science
Scholars in Second Grade begin to hypothesize and classify observed phenomena so that they better understand our universe. They are encouraged to ask questions and ponder about nature and to seek answers through collecting, counting, measuring, making qualitative observations, and discussing findings.
Cycles in Nature
- Describe seasonal cycles, life cycles, and the water cycle.
Insects
- Discuss the role of insects in nature.
- Distinguish characteristics of insects.
The Human Body
- Identify practices to ensure a healthy body.
- Explain the organs and functions of the digestive and excretory systems.
- Explain the relationship of cells to tissues, organs, and systems.
- Explain the “food pyramid”.
- Discuss vitamins and minerals.
Magnetism
- Describe magnetic poles and fields
- Discuss the law of magnetic attraction.
- Apply orienteering to locate north.
Simple Machines
- Name common simple machines to include lever, pulley, wheel-and-axle, gears, inclined plane, wedge, and screw.
- Describe friction and ways to reduce friction.
Science Biographies
- Anton van Leeuwenhoek
- Elijah McCoy
- Florence Nightingale
- Daniel Hale Williams
Math
The scholars in Second Grade are provided with the necessary learning experiences beginning with the concrete and pictorial stages, followed by the abstract stage, to enable them to learn mathematics meaningfully. This approach encourages an active thinking process and the clear communication of mathematical ideas and problem solving. Emphasis is placed on the development of understanding of mathematical concepts and their applications, and proficiency in problem solving, mathematical reasoning, and higher order thinking.
Numbers and Number Sense
- Numbers to 1000
- Tables and graphs
- Money
Fractions
- Halves and quarters
- Writing fractions
- Fraction of a set
Computation: Addition, Subtraction, Problem Solving and Equations
- Addition and subtraction without renaming
- Addition and subtraction with renaming
- Methods for mental math
- Adding and subtracting money
- Multiplication – 2, 3, 4, and 5 tables
- Division – 2, 3, 4, and 5 tables
Measurement-Linear Measure, Weight, Capacity, Temperature, Time
- Measuring length
- Measuring weight
- Time
- Capacity
Geometry
- Making shapes
- Flat and curved faces
Second Grade Curriculum Map
The Third Grade curriculum is a detailed outline of specific content and skills to be taught in language arts, history, geography, mathematics, science, and the fine arts. The core of the Third Grade curriculum is designed to provide a coherent, content specific foundation for learning, while allowing flexibility to meet individual needs. Spalding Integrated Language Arts is used for phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Wordly Wise 3000 is used for building vocabulary development furthering understanding of new words and concepts. Learning opportunities are grounded in the application of Multiple Intelligences and the Interdisciplinary approach to instruction utilizing the Elements of Depth and Complexity providing a challenging academic program.
Third Grade scholars are taught to look at the world through the Global Theme lens of Interdependence, identifying the following essential, conceptual truths (generalizations):
- Interdependence may be natural or person-made.
- Interdependence may lead to some form of dependence.
- Interdependence requires cooperation and demands respect.
- Interdependence shows how living things need each other.
- Interdependence may hinder or facilitate growth or development.
- Interdependence may lead to survival.
Language Arts
The Third Grade language arts program includes reading, writing, spelling, grammar usage, listening, speaking, and different genres of literature. Third Grade scholars will continue to apply fundamental concepts they have learned in prior years. Concentration will be on aspects of spoken and written language that will allow scholars to become efficient readers and writers.
Reading and Writing
Reading Comprehension and Response
- Independently read longer works of grade-level appropriate fiction and nonfiction with fluency, accuracy, and comprehension.
- Ask how, why, and what-if questions in interpreting fiction and nonfiction texts.
- Use the dictionary, table of contents, and index.
Poetry
- Use words or phrases that appeal to the senses.
- Use similes or metaphors to compare.
- Follow a strict rhyme scheme.
- Read, discuss, and compose narrative, lyric, and list poems.
Fiction
- Analyze stories for plot, characters, outcomes, and lessons.
- Discuss Norse, Greek, and Roman myths.
- Define the literary terms-biography and autobiography; fiction and nonfiction.
Sayings and Phrases
History and World Geography
The Third Grade program in history and geography includes a spatial sense of the world, an awareness of the physical processes that shape life, a sense of the interactions between humans and their environment, an understanding of the relationship between place and culture, and an awareness of the characteristics of specific regions and cultures.
World
World Geography-Spatial Sense and Geographical Terms and Features
Map and globe skills
- Identify four directions, major oceans, seven continents, the equator, the four hemispheres, the U.S., Texas, and Corpus Christi.
- Use scale, an atlas, and online resources.
- Define boundary, channel, delta, isthmus, plateau, reservoir, and strait.
- Measure using a bar scale.
World Geography-Canada
- Discuss French and British heritages.
- Locate the Rocky Mountains, Hudson River, St. Lawrence River, Yukon River, Canadian Provinces, and major cities of Canada.
World Geography-Rivers of the World
- Define source, mouth, tributary, and drainage basin.
- Locate the Ob, Yellow (Huang He), Yangtze or Ch’and, Ganges, Indus, Nile, Amazon, Parana, Orinoco, Mississippi, Mackenzie, Yukon, Murray-Darling, Volga, Danube, Rhine, Nile, Niger, and Congo Rivers.
Ancient Roman Civilization
- Geography of the Mediterranean region
- The Background and founding of Rome
- The Roman Empire
- The Rise of the Byzantine Empire
The Vikings
- Identify Scandinavia as birthplace of the Viking culture.
- Discuss early Viking Leaders.
- Locate Greenland, Canada, and Newfoundland on maps and globes.
America
The Earliest Americans and Crossing to North America and Native Americans
- Explain the migration of nomadic Ice Age people from Asia to North America.
- Discuss early and present day Native American peoples to include the Inuit, Anasazi and Mound Builders, and Native Americans of the Southwest, Eastern Woodlands, and Southeast.
Early Exploration of North America
- Early Spanish exploration and settlement
- Exploration and settlement of the Southwest
- The search for the Northwest Passage
The Thirteen Colonies-Life and Times Before the Revolution
- Discuss the geography and climate of the thirteen colonies.
- Locate the thirteen colonies and important cities of the colonies on maps and globes.
- Compare and contrast the Southern, New England, and Middle Atlantic colonies.
- Discuss important leaders of the thirteen colonies.
Science
The Third Grade science curriculum requires hands-on experience and observation. Scholars are encouraged to ask questions about nature; collect, count, and measure things; and make qualitative observations. In Grade 3, scholars will continue their explorations in science by broadening and building upon what they have learned in previous grades. Scholars will expand knowledge of animals and animal habitats, human body systems, forms and properties of energy, ecology, and the universe. Scholars in Grade 3 will begin to understand what makes their world what it is today.
Introduction to Classification of Animals
- Classify animals based on characteristics.
The Human Body-The Muscular, Skeletal, and Nervous Systems and How the Eye and Ear Work
Describe the muscular system.
- Differentiate involuntary and voluntary muscles.
- Describe the skeletal system.
- Describe the nervous system.
- Explain reflexes.
Explain the senses of vision and hearing.
- Identify the parts of the eye and ear.
- Explain farsightedness and nearsightedness.
- Describe sound.
Light and Optics
- Discuss how light travels.
- Differentiate transparent and opaque objects.
- Describe reflection.
- Explain the spectrum.
- Discuss the use of lenses.
Sound
- Discuss how sound travels.
- Explain qualities of sound to include pitch and intensity.
- Identify measures to protect hearing.
Ecology
- Identify various habitats and ecosystems.
- Explain the interdependence of organisms and their environment.
- Discuss food chains.
- Identify human-made threats and measures to protect the environment.
Astronomy
- Identify features of our solar system.
- Describe planetary motion of orbit and rotation.
- Discuss gravity.
- Describe an eclipse.
- Identify stars and constellations.
- Utilize Orienteering, using the Big Dipper and North Star.
- Discuss exploration of space.
Science Biographies
- Alexander Graham Bell
- Nicolaus Copernicus
- Mae Jemison
- John Muir
Math
The Third Grade math program is designed to equip scholars with sound concept development, critical thinking, and efficient problem solving skills. Mathematical concepts are taught to mastery through specific learning tasks that allow for immediate assessment and consolidation. The concrete to pictorial to abstract approach enables scholars to encounter math in a meaningful way. Scholars are able to visualize and solve mathematical problems confidently by using the model drawing approach. Furthermore, metacognition is employed as a strategy for scholars to monitor their thinking processes in problem solving.
Numbers and Number Sense
Fractions and Decimals
- Fractions as a whole
- Equivalent fractions
- Adding/subtracting fractions
- Fraction as a set
- Fractions and money
Money
- Dollars and cents
- Addition
- Subtraction
- Multiplication and division
Computation: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Problem Solving and Equations
- Mental calculation
- Estimation
- Multiplication tables 6,7,8, and 9
- Word problems
- Dividing with remainders
Measurement-Linear Measure, Weight, Capacity, Temperature, Time
- Length in standard and customary units
- Weight in standard and customary units
- Capacity
- Word problems
- Hour and minutes
- Other units of time
Geometry
- Angles
- Right angles
- Quadrilaterals and triangles
- Solid figures
- Area, perimeter, and volume
Third Grade Curriculum Map
Learning opportunities for Fourth Grade scholars are grounded in the application of Multiple Intelligences and the Interdisciplinary approach to instruction utilizing the Elements of Depth and Complexity in providing a challenging academic program. Fourth Grade scholars are taught to look at the world through the Global Theme lens of Structures, identifying the following essential, conceptual truths (generalizations):
- Patterns provide structure.
- Structures change, and those changes have consequences.
- Structures are natural or manmade.
- Structural design is a consequence of need.
- Structures communicate.
- Structures may lead to survival.
Language Arts
In Fourth Grade, scholars will continue concentrating on the aspects of spoken and written language, allowing them to become more efficient and independent readers and writers.
Writing, Grammar, and Usage
- Sentence identification and construction
- Writing reports
- Gather information from different resources.
- Understand the purpose of the writing and the targeted audience.
- Define a main idea and adhere to it.
- Provide an introduction and a conclusion.
- Organize material in separate, coherent paragraphs.
- Document sources in a bibliography.
- Study a variety of types of writing with a coherent structure or story line.
- Grammar and Punctuation
- Use conjunctions and interjections.
- Use commas before conjunctions that combine sentences and inside quotation marks in dialogue.
- Use quotation marks in dialogue, for titles of poems, songs, short stories, and magazine articles.
- Underline or italicize titles of books.
- Identify and use prefixes and suffixes.
Poetry
- Use words or phrases that appeal to the senses, including similes or metaphors.
- Read, compose, and analyze rhyme with a strict rhyme scheme.
- Read and compose narrative poems.
- Read and compose lyric poems.
- Identify and apply the use of a stanza.
Fiction
- Identify characters, plot, setting, and dialogue.
- Read and discuss folktales.
- Read and discuss novels.
- Longer works of fiction
- Works divided into sections called chapters
- More complicated plots than short stories
- Read and discuss legends.
- Traditional stories about the past
- May be based on historical figures or events
- Come from cultures around the world
- Passed down orally before being written down
Speeches
- Discuss famous speeches.
- Patrick Henry and Sojourner Truth
- Discuss persuasive speeches, using arguments supported by facts and reason.
Sayings and Phrases
- Proverbs
- Express general truth or observation about life.
- Literal or figurative meaning
- Passed down orally from one generation to the next
- Idioms
History and Geography
In Fourth Grade, scholars continue to learn and apply geography skills as they move into more abstract information. Scholars will learn world geography to include Europe in the Middle Ages, early African kingdoms, and Chinese conquerors and dynasties. The chronological study of U.S. history begun in Third Grade is continued in Fourth Grade.
World
- World Geography-Spatial Sense and Mountain Ranges
- Map scales
- Longitude, latitude, coordinates, degrees.
- Prime Meridian and International Date Line
- Relief maps for elevations and depressions
- Major mountain ranges
- Europe in the Middle Ages
- Geography related to the development of Western Europe
- Background
- The Middle Ages dated from 450-1400CE-The Dark Ages
- Development of the Christian Church
- Aspects of feudalism
- Growth of towns as centers of commerce; guilds and apprentices; the weakening of feudal ties
- England in the Middle Ages
- The Spread of Islam and the “Holy Wars”
- The origins of Islam
- Contributions of Islamic civilizations
- Wars between Muslims and Christians
- Early and Medieval African Kingdoms
- Geography of Africa
- Early African Kingdoms
- Medieval African Kingdoms
America
- Growth of political parties
- George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson
- Early Presidents and Politics
- Cabinet and administration
- The Constitution of the United States
- Making a new government: from the Declaration to the Constitution
- Definition of “republican” government
- Articles of the Confederation: weak central government
- Founding Fathers
- Constitutional Convention
- Main ideas behind the Declaration of Independence
- Making a Constitutional Government
- The American Revolution
- The French and Indian Wars
- Causes and provocations of the American Revolution
- Important events and figures of American Revolution
- Paul Revere’s ride
- Concord and Lexington
- Bunker Hill
- Second Continental Congress
- George Washington
- Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
- Representative women in the Revolution
- Loyalists
- Victory at Saratoga and alliance with France
- Valley Forge
- Benedict Arnold
- John Paul Jones
- Nathan Hale
- Cornwallis’ surrender at Yorktown
- Reformers
- Abolitionists
- Dorothea Dix, Horace Mann, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Amelia Bloomer, Sojourner Truth
- Symbols and Figures
- Spirit of ’76 painting and Archibald McNeal Willard
- White House and Capitol building
- Great Seal of the United States
Science
In Fourth Grade, scholars will continue their explorations in science by broadening and building on courses of study undertaken in previous grades.
- The Human Body-The Circulatory and Respiratory Systems
- The Circulatory System
- The Respiratory System
- Smoking: damage to lung tissue, lung cancer
- Chemistry-Basic Terms and Concepts
- Atoms
- Properties of Matter
- Elements
- Solutions-concentration and saturation
- Electricity
- Static electricity
- Electric current
- Electric circuits
- Conductors and insulators
- Electromagnets
- Using electricity safely
- Geology
- Earth’s layers
- Movement of crustal plates and continental drift
- Earthquakes and tsunamis
- Volcanoes
- Hot springs, geysers, and Old Faithful
- Theories of how the continents and oceans were formed
- How mountains are formed
- Rocks
- Formation and characteristics of metamorphic, igneous, and sedimentary rock
- Weathering and erosion
- Meteorology
- The water cycle
- Clouds
- The atmosphere
- Troposphere
- Stratosphere
- Mesosphere
- Thermosphere
- Ionosphere
- Exosphere
- Air movement
- Cold and warm fronts
- Weather forecasting methods and tools
- Weather vs climate
- Science Biographies
- Benjamin Banneker
- Elizabeth Blackwell
- Charles Drew
- Michael Faraday
Math
The Fourth Grade math program is based upon lessons designed to move from the concrete to the pictorial to the abstract which enables concepts and skills to be developed, mastered, and translated.
Numbers and Number Sense
- Whole numbers to the millions
- Negative numbers
- Factors
- Multiples
- Approximation
- Coordinate grid
- Changes in quantities
- Organizing and analyzing data
- Probability
- Order of outcomes
- Bar graphs
- Line graphs
Fractions and Decimals
- Equivalent fractions
- Adding and subtracting fractions
- Mixed numbers
- Improper fractions
- Fraction and division
- Fraction of a set
- Tenths, hundredths, thousandths, and rounding
- Four operations of decimals
Money
Computation-Multiplication and Division and Solving Problems and Equations
- Four operations of whole numbers
- Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division
Measurement
- Adding and subtracting measures
- Multiplying measures
- Dividing measures
- Cubic units
- Volume of a rectangular prism
Geometry
- Congruent figures
- Tiling patterns
- Line symmetry
- Rotational symmetry
- Area of rectangles
- Perimeter of rectangles
- Composite figures
- Right angles
- Measuring angles
- Perpendicular and parallel lines
- Quadrilaterals
- Triangles
- Circles
- Solid figures
- Nets
Fourth Grade Curriculum Map