Primary Grades
Grade 1
Welcome to First Grade: a transition from Kindergarten to the path of lifelong learning! First grade is an exciting, yet challenging, year of many firsts: losing teeth, formal testing, reading, and leading prayer services. Responsibility, independence, and social skills are stressed during this year of spiritual, academic, and emotional growth.
While first graders are introduced to the basic teachings of the Catholic Church, they experience the love of God and learn to respect all of God’s creation. They enjoy attending Mass with their seventh grade buddies.
Learning to read is the focal point of first grade curriculum. Reading is taught through a study of phonics, phonemic awareness, sight words, and an exposure to a variety of texts to balance comprehension and decoding skills. The love of reading is nurtured through the exposure to reading whether by the teacher, whole-class, in small groups, or independently. First graders engage in a variety of writing experiences to develop the freedom of writing, yet build the foundation for formal sentence conventions, spelling, and structured writing.
Number concepts, computation, critical thinking, and problem solving are the key math skills developed in first grade through our calendar activities, interactive games, and textbook practice.
The main social studies themes for first grade include: community, past and present, mapping skills, and respecting God’s creation. First graders are inspired to love science through their hands-on investigations of plant and animal traits for survival, space and seasonal patterns, and light and sound energy.
Parent Overview Common Core State Standards | Grade 1
Grade 2
Second grade marks a special time in a child's life as they transition from learning to read to reading to learn. As second graders, they become more independent and confident about their abilities to hold conversations, communicate their thoughts, and use creativity to solve simple problems. The children develop their ability to work together towards a common goal through several team building exercises and challenges.
Second Grade is an exciting year when our students prepare for the sacraments of reconciliation and their first eucharist. They will also lead the congregation in the May Crowning Mass. Second graders learn about Jesus’ parables, celebrate feast days, and study the seasons of our liturgical year.
Students learn about story elements as they explore fairy tales, tall tales, and biographies. Students are exposed to many texts and decodable books to increase phonetic decoding, fluency, and comprehension. Each student uses their own Chromebook to log into the Accelerated Reading program, which tracks individual reading success throughout the year. Writing happens every day in second grade. We write informative, how-to, and narrative pieces and poems in our journals every week.
Major math concepts in second grade include: time, money, fractions, geometry, measurement, addition and subtraction with regrouping, and multiplication and division (2’s, 3’s, 4’s, 5’s and 10’s). We use manipulatives and our individual whiteboards, as well as many math apps on our Chromebook computers to practice and sharpen our number skills.
Second graders explore forces and machines, magnets, animal habitats (including special units on Penguins, Oceans, and Marine Mammals), rocks and fossils, and we apply the scientific method through a fun and interactive unit about plant growth.
One major theme that is woven throughout the 2nd grade year is understanding the richness and diversity of all the cultures of the world. Students learn about their ancestors and prepare an oral presentation about a country/culture.The other major themes in Social Studies include units about producers and consumers, landforms, U.S. holidays, heroes and leaders.