Grade 1 Curriculum

Grade 1 Curriculum Overview

First grade is a time when children build strong friendships with their peers and their friendships become just as important as their family relationships. They thrive on encouragement and have a tremendous capacity for enjoyment. Students often work in small groups to encourage social development and relationship building. However, the classroom also supports students who crave independent work. The room is set up to encourage independence and growth. By the end of First grade, the class runs their milestone project, the Waffle Inn. This long standing tradition at All Saints allows social First graders to work together cooperatively and to understand that each person in a business or community matters to the success of the whole.

Language Arts

Building on the skills developed in Kindergarten, the First Grade Language Arts curriculum emphasizes personalized instruction through small-group learning. Classroom teachers intentionally structure lessons to maximize individual attention and support. In Handwriting, students refine their letter formation skills.

Phonemic awareness instruction in First Grade covers short and long vowels, double consonants, l, r, and s clusters, contractions, final clusters, and the digraphs sh, th, wh, ch, and tch. Writing instruction focuses on foundational grammar skills, including proper capitalization and punctuation, naming and action words, sentence structure, proper nouns and pronouns, and present-tense verb endings (-s, -ed, and -ing).

Mathematics

First Grade is a pivotal time for developing mathematical thinking. The curriculum introduces a wide range of concepts, encouraging students to explore them in depth. Teachers emphasize problem-solving strategies and encourage students to articulate their methods, fostering a deeper understanding and collaborative learning.

First Grade math units include numerical operations, basic addition and subtraction, number sense (counting to 100, number lines, and skip counting), time, graphing, calendars, money, and geometry (2D and 3D shapes, transformations, and symmetry). Students also explore standard and non-standard measurement, an introduction to double-digit addition and subtraction, estimation, and place value.

Science

The First Grade science curriculum builds on students’ natural curiosity about the world by introducing more structured experimentation and hands-on exploration. Students are encouraged to “think like scientists” as they conduct experiments to deepen their understanding of the natural world. Science instruction emphasizes forming and testing hypotheses, using scientific tools appropriately, and drawing logical conclusions based on evidence. First Grade units include Animals, Plants, Environments, Earth’s Resources, Weather and Seasons, Objects in the Sky, All About Matter, and Forces and Energy.

Social Studies

To deepen their understanding of the world around them, First Graders begin by exploring their school environment as a foundation for investigating their neighborhood and community. They learn about the components of a community, including its people, businesses, and municipal structures that support safety and uphold residents’ rights.

Through an in-depth study of Hoboken, students examine key aspects of the community, such as parks and recreation, city services, and retail. Later in the year, they apply this knowledge to their study of colonial communities, enabling them to compare and contrast modern-day communities with those of the past.

Co-Curriculars

First Grade students participate in a variety of co-curricular activities, including music, dance, art, physical education, and world language. For more details, please visit our Beyond Core Academics page.

Grade 1 Milestone Projects

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Grade 1 - Waffle Inn

The Waffle Inn, the First Grade milestone project, is a longstanding tradition at All Saints. Each year, the students transform an area of the school into a restaurant with the house specialty being – you guessed it – waffles!

Each year the class takes a trip to a restaurant in Hoboken to see how a real restaurant is run. The students see the kitchen and have an opportunity to talk to the staff about their responsibilities. The class returns to school with a lot of ideas for their own restaurant!

Prior to the restaurant opening, each student must fill out an application explaining what job he or she would like and why he or she would be successful. The “applicant” is also required to attend an interview with the restaurant managers (a.k.a. the teachers) during which they must answer challenging questions about how they would handle given situations. Finally, students create menus, advertisements, and invitations, and solicit parent volunteers to bring in necessary supplies.

On the day of the big event, hosts and hostesses greet each class as students enter the restaurant. Servers take orders and bus people help to clean and reset tables. Parent volunteers are always present to help make the waffles while the student chefs add the desired toppings. Cashiers collect Waffle Inn money and distribute a notepad and pencil to each customer as a souvenir. The First Graders enjoy serving the other classes, but their favorite part always comes at the end of the day when they are served waffles, with the works of course, by their own parents.

This project is a meaningful part of the curriculum as it reinforces lessons around money, which is introduced during First Grade. It also allows students to learn more about the jobs and businesses in the local community. Finally, the students learn the importance of working together when they realize that each job is important and that the restaurant cannot run smoothly without everyone doing their part.