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1st Grade

Expedition 1: Tools and Work

Students build their literacy and citizenship skills as they engage in a study of tools and work. Students first learn about how tools help to do a job. They then extend their understanding of what it takes to do a job when they learn how the “habits of character” of initiative, collaboration, perseverance, and responsibility help them do work.

Guiding Questions & Big Ideas:

  • Why do we need tools?
    • Tools make our lives easier by helping us do work.
    • Tools help us create things.
  • How do habits of character help us do work?
    • Habits of character are behaviors that help us learn and do our work.
  • How do we create a magnificent thing?
    • People use tools and habits of character to create magnificent things.

Expedition 2: What’s Up in the Sky?

Students build their literacy and science skills as they engage in a study of the sun, moon, and stars.

Guiding Questions & Big Ideas:

  • Why do authors write about the sun, moon, and stars?
    • Authors write books to describe, imagine, and explain the objects we see in the sky.
  • What patterns can we observe in the sky?
    • The sun and moon appear in different places in the sky during different times of day and of the year.
    • Stars are visible during the night, but not during the day.
    • Patterns of motion of objects in the sky can be described and predicted.
    • Scientists use a process of inquiry in order to understand patterns and make predictions and comparisons.
  • How do authors use their knowledge and observations to write a story?
    • Authors select a topic and observe and study it.
    • Authors plan out what they want to write by talking about it and trying it out.
    • Authors use beautiful language to show, not tell, about the topic of their choice.
    • Authors write a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end.

Expedition 3: Birds’ Amazing Bodies

Students build their literacy skills as they engage in an in-depth study of birds’ bodies.

Guiding Questions & Big Ideas:

  • What makes a bird a bird?
    • Birds are animals with beaks, feathers, wings, and feet.
    • There are many different types of birds, and they use their body parts to help them survive.
    • Despite their differences, there are key features that all birds have in common.
  • How do birds use their body parts to survive?
    • Birds have specially designed body parts that help them survive.
  • How do specific birds use their body parts to survive?
    • Some birds have unique and specially designed body parts that help them survive.
  • How do we build our research skills and share our learning?
    • To write informative texts, writers must read, collect evidence, and discuss their knowledge.

Math Units:

  • Unit 1: Getting to know my Mathematicians
  • Unit 2: Building with and talking about shapes
  • Unit 3: Tens and ones are useful ways to organize
  • Unit 4: Represent and model joining and separating situations
  • Unit 5: Using data to describe and wonder about the world
  • Unit 6: Equal means the same
  • Unit 7: Building with numbers within 20
  • Unit 8: Finding patterns in numbers
  • Unit 9: Using place value to add and subtract
  • Unit 10: Using units to measure world
  • Unit 11: Partition shapes into equal parts