GRADE 1

 

       The Curriculum used at WIS Al Qarain is a “Modified” British Curriculum. It is based on the Foundation Stage Curriculum, and the Key Stage 1 Curriculum, for Grade 1’s. This is adapted to the needs and requirements of the students. It draws from the Reggio Emilia Approach and also makes use of Howard Gardner’s theories. We offer a Cross Curricular, Activity based curriculum, which includes the development of important Perceptual skills required for formal learning. We mix a strong academic foundation with the enjoyment of learning. As the year progresses differentiated learning takes place, providing extra support and help for some students and more motivation and stimulation for those who need it.
       Language and Literacy is given priority and the emphasis is on Speaking and Listening. This progresses gradually to Phonic’s, reading and handwriting in KG2 and more formal Spelling, Comprehension and Creative writing in Grade 1.
The Curriculum is organized over 8 areas of learning:

  • Personal, Social and Emotional Development
  • Communication, Language and Literacy
  • Mathematical Development – counting, sequencing, Math concepts, manipulation.
  • Knowledge and Understanding of the World – (Science, Biology, Environmental studes, Geography, History, and ICT)
  • Physical Development – including Perceptual skills & other Skills
  • Creative Development –Art / handcraft , Music and Drama
  • Arabic
  • Islamic Studies   

All of our students go to specialist teachers for PE, Music, ICT and Library Handwriting: We work with the belief that a strong foundation in correct letter formation will help spelling and fluency in writing. We begin with handwriting in our early years’ classes and continue to stress this skill throughout each child’s Grade 1 year. When children arrive with us and have already learnt a handwriting style, we do not try to alter it as long as it is legible and well formed. Teaching takes place through short spurts of Main Focus Teaching Lessons followed by activities to reinforce the learning. Small group teaching also takes place.

Homework:
      Homework in the Primary School is viewed as a valuable activity. It is given to support and reinforce work taught in school and to train children to work independently and to manage their time. The time spent on homework ranges from 10 minutes to 15 minutes per sub area. Homework should NOT take more than 1 hour a day.

Assessment:
       There is ongoing Assessment and Observations covering all the Learning Areas mentioned above. Targets are set for students not reaching the Early Learning goals and thereafter Review takes place. After discussion with the parents, new targets are set and once again observations will take place.
       In Grade One, Ongoing observation takes place as above, as well as Assessment in the form of weekly Spelling and Mental Math tests. Later in the year Reading evaluation and and tests are given for certain areas of work. Written Reports go out 3 times a year to parents.
       Each classroom is managed by one teacher with a teaching assistant in each KG classroom. Grade one’s share a teaching assistant between two classes. And there is an Educational Support teacher to give extra help to small groups of Kg2 and Grade 1 students.
       The style of teaching is: Short spurts of teaching Main Focus lessons, followed by activities to reinforce learning. The teacher will work with the whole group and smaller groups as well. Children are grouped within the class for different purposes either in ability groups or mixed ability groups depending on the objectives of each particular lesson.

All about Me
  • My Family and My Friends
  • Growth and changes in humans
  • Body Image, Name parts of the body
  • How we move, running, jumping, skipping….
  • Identify the five Senses
  • Explore: Sight, sound, taste, smell and touch.
  • Noting differences - eye colour, hair, height …
Transport
  • General, land, water, air, road
  • Transport around our City
  • Emergency, water & Petrol tankers etc
  • Visit to Transport Museum.
Professions
  • Their names and what they do
  • What they wear
Animals
  • Classifying of animals, reptiles, farm, wild.
  • Domestic / pets, water animals
  • Names of adult and baby animals
  • How animals move gallop, slither
  • What animals eat?
  • Habitats, where do they live?
  • Look at some Life cycles – caterpillar, frog ,chicken
Matter and Materials
  • What things are made from?
  • Natural and man made materials
Forces
  • Push and Pulls
Dinosaurs
  • Understanding how things become extinct.
Science Experiments
  • How things change
  • Liquids to solids and solids to liquids
  • Dissolving and Evaporation
  • Floating and sinking
  • And other experiments

 

Phonics
  • They should be taught phonemic awareness and phonic knowledge to decode and encode words.
  • Develop - Auditory perceptual skills
  • Listening to sounds in the environment, in music and in songs and rhymes.
  • Alliteration and repetition of sounds and words
  • Recognize and identify by sound the letters of the alphabet
  • Recognize and write their names using a Capital letter only at the start
  • Explore sets of rhyming strands
  • Recognize initial sounds, medial and ending sounds
  • Know the vowel sounds well
  • Identify similarities and differences in sounds, letters and words.
  • Long medial vowel sounds -oo, ee, endings- ing, ed, ay
  • Diagraphs - sh,ch, th,wh,
  • Understand the concept of alphabetical order
  • Recognize and write all the Capital letters.
  • Learn how to use a picture Dictionary and later a simple word dictionary
  • Words with the following sounds
          i)double endings – ll, ss, ff, zz
          ii)blends – e.g. bl, cl, dr, str, and others
          iii)endings- ng, ck, nt
Spelling
  • Identify all 3 letters in a three letter word and to spell them correctly
  • CVC words (homework spelling words)
  • High Frequency words
  • Colours
  • Number words
  • Days of the week
  • Spell some words with long vowel sounds e.g. cake , took, boat, play
Speaking and Listening
  • Learn several Rhymes
  • Listen attentively to stories
  • Participate in meaningful, Speaking and Listening activities
  • Use of Story Sacks, Treasure chests, Role play, puppets,small world and table top play, to develop their oral skills and confidence.
  • Join discussions
  • Express and communicate in a wide variety of ways
  • Extend vocabulary linked to our Topics and their own experiences.
  • Retell familiar stories in their own words
  • Oral comprehension – answer Who, what, when, where, how questions
  • Verbally explain sequencing – what happened first, next, last
Handwriting
  • Develop Fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination
  • To move from mark making to writing for a purpose
  • Move towards using conventional written language
  • To practice correct letter formation of lower case letters
  • To establish the correct pencil grip
  • To develop a neat legible script that will be easy to join later into cursive writing
Reading
  • Read Stories and Rhymes at their reading level
  • Develop an appreciation and love for books
  • Develop – Visual Perceptual Skills – visual discrimination, visual memory
  • Recognize and read on sight all the High frequency words for the KG 2 list and later on the words from the grade 1 list
  • Build sentences using high frequency words and Topic words
  • Take part in whole class, small group, paired and individual reading
  • Read at level one
  • Recognize the Beginning, middle and end of a story
  • Identify and discuss characters and the settings of different stories
  • Begin to understand the difference between fiction and non fiction books
  • Manage an easy reading comprehension
  • Start to read fluently and confidently
  • Read with expression
  • Reading at reading level 3 or above
  • Locate information they need in a variety of books, magazines, pamphlets, and catalogues.
Sentences and Grammar
  • Copying of “news and other topic sentences from the board
  • Writing their “own” new, with the help of some words on the board.
  • Write constructive sentences using some High frequency words.
  • Recognize a sentence and know that it begins with a Capital letter and ends with a (tiny) full stop.
  • Writing for a purpose in a practical and imaginative context i.e. labels, lists, instructions
  • Recognize a doing word and add ing and ed for present and past tense.(run – running) (play –played)
  • Adding s to make plurals (hat - hats) -one and more
  • To use Capital letters correctly – people and place names ,days of the week etc.
  • Use question marks correctly.
Creative writing
  • Story boarding using a variety of writing and painting mediums and materials
  • Starting to do emergent writing / own writing, about a picture
  • Recreating books about favorite stories and adding own ideas
  • Making outlines of a story, using pictures and captions
  • Writing complete sentences about their own personal experiences, sounding out,independently, and phonetically, any words they don’t know
  • Write short stories about a simple setting and a character (+ - 5 sentences)
  • Enjoy creative book making and writing and illustrating their own stories.

 

1st Term
  • Knows several Counting Rhymes
  • Knows colours
  • Names 2D shapes correctly Patterns
  • Recites numbers to 100 ( from any given number )
  • Recognizes and orders Numbers to 20
  • Counts objects correctly ( up to 23)
  • Count in a variety of ways, 2’s, 10’s
  • Counts backwards from 20
  • Understands Concepts of:
          i)Sorting and grouping
          ii)Opposites
          iii)Before and after
          iv)More and less
          v)Time - Days of the week
          vi)Addition
  • Correct formation of numbers
  • Doubling Numbers to 5
  • Understands & learns addition facts to 5 ( Number Bonds)
  • Addition of single digit numbers 2+4=
  • Solve simple word problems (Mental Math)
2nd Term
  • Learning & using Mathematical vocabulary
  • Read, recognize ,use, match and spell number words e.g. one, two. ….
  • Counting: all above as well as in 5’s, and in 3’s and 100’s
  • Addition Number Bonds from 6 to 10
  • What number comes before and after double numbers e.g. 59
  • Doubling numbers to 10
  • Subtraction of single digit numbers e.g. 7-3 =
  • Subtraction from 10
  • Mental Math
  • 3D shapes
  • Fractions
  • Concepts of :
          i)Capacity
          ii)Measurement
          iii)Time- in hours and later in half hours
          iv)Mass
          v)Graphs
  • Doubling numbers to 10
  • Addition and Subtraction Number Bonds up to 10
  • Missing number sums e.g. ( __ +7 = 9) or (8 - __ = 5)
  • Adding 3 numbers together
  • Tens and ones
  • Place value
  • Addition of two digit numbers 23+16 = (No carrying over)
  • Subtraction of two digit numbers
  • Problem solving ( Mental Math)
  • Problem solving – reading simple word sums.

 

During key stage 1 students learn about themselves as developing individuals and as members of their communities, building on their own experiences and on the early learning goals for personal, social and emotional development. They learn the basic rules and skills for keeping themselves healthy and safe and for behaving well. They have opportunities to show they can take some responsibility for themselves and their environment. They begin to learn about their own and other people's feelings and become aware of the views, needs and rights of other children and older people. As members of a class and school community, they learn social skills such as how to share, take turns, play, help others, resolve simple arguments and resist bullying. They begin to take an active part in the life of their school.
Developing Confidence and responsibility

Students need to:

  • To recognize what they like and dislike.
  • Share their opinions on things that matter to them.
  • Deal with their feelings in a positive way / talk – don’t be aggressive.
  • Think about themselves and others.
  • Learn from their experiences .
  • Recognize what they are good at .
  • Learn how to set simple goals.
Preparing to play an active role as citizens

Students should be taught:

  • To take part in discussions with one other person and the whole class.
  • Recognize the difference between right and wrong.
  • To agree and follow rules for their group, and understand how rules help them.
  • To realize that people and other living things have needs, and that they have responsibilities to meet them that they belong to various groups and communities, such as family and school.
  • What improves and harms their local, natural and built environments and about some of the ways people can look after them.
  • What improves and harms their local, natural and built environments and about some of the ways people can look after them.
  • Developing a healthy lifestyle .
  • To maintain personal hygiene .
  • About the process of growing from young to old and how people's needs change the names of the main parts of the body.
  • Developing good relationships and respecting the differences between people.

Students are taught to:

  • Recognize how their behaviour affects other people.
  • Listen to other people, and play and work cooperatively.
  • Identify and respect the differences and similarities between people.
  • That family and friends should care for each other.
  • That there are different types of teasing and bullying, that bullying is wrong, and how to get help to deal with bullying.

Take and share responsibility [for example, for their own behaviour; by helping to make classroom rules and following them; by looking after pets well]

  • Feel positive about themselves [for example, by having their achievements recognized and by being given positive feedback about themselves].
  • Take part in discussions [for example, talking about topics of school, and global concern, such as 'where our food and raw materials for industry come from'].
  • Make real choices [for example, between healthy options in school meals, what to watch on television, what games to play].
  • Meet and talk with people [for example, with outside visitors such, police officers, the school nurse].
  • Develop relationships through work and play [for example, by sharing equipment with other pupils or their friends in a group task].
  • Consider social and moral dilemmas that they come across in everyday life [for example, aggressive behaviour, right and wrong, simple environmental issues]
  • Ask for help [for example, from family and friends, teachers and other responsible adults].

 

During key stage 1 students explore ICT and learn to use it confidently and with purpose to achieve specific outcomes. They start to use ICT to develop their ideas and record their creative work. They become familiar with hardware and software. In Grade 1, ICT should be integrated to support the study for English, mathematics and science.

 


Using their senses, students explore visual and tactile materials, including colour, pattern and texture, line, shape, form and use of space.

  • They try out tools and techniques .
  • Do observational drawings of a range of objects and artefacts.
  • They work in 2 and 3 dimensions.
  • Explore differences and similarities in their work, and appreciate them .
  • Use a range of materials and processes [for example, painting, collage, print making, digital media, textiles, sculpture].
  • They make choices when selecting and combining media and materials.

 


Enjoy exploring sound, pitch, and rhythm through making music using, instruments, dance and singing.

  • They use their voices expressively by singing songs and speaking chants and rhymes .
  • Play tuned and un tuned instruments.
  • Rehearse and perform with others [for example, starting and finishing together, keeping to a steady pulse]. Practice for Productions.
  • Create musical patterns .
  • By working on their own, in groups of different sizes and as a class.
  • Use movement imaginatively, responding to stimuli, including music, and performing basic skills [for example, travelling, being still, making a shape, jumping, turning and gesturing].

 


Students learn to:

  • Understand how important it is to be active.
  • Develop gross motor skills, balance, control and coordination.
  • Perform basic skills in travelling, being still, finding space and using it safely, both on the floor and whilst using apparatus.
  • Remember and repeat simple skills and actions with increasing control and coordination.
  • Apply rules for the safe use of equipmentObserve, and copy what others have done.
  • Use what they have learnt to improve their own control and balance.
  • To recognize and describe how their bodies feel during different activities.
  • To travel with, send and receive a ball and other equipment in different ways.
  • To further develop the range of their skills and actions [for example, balancing, taking off and landing, turning and rolling].

 


During Grade 1 Students need to:

  • Explore sections of Geagraphy, History, Science, Biology and Environmental studies.
  • Express their own views about people, places and environments.
  • Use geographical vocabulary e.g., hill, river, motorway, desert, forest, ocean /sea.
  • Pinpoint or recognize a place on a globe or simple map.
  • Become aware of changes in the local environment.
  • Seasonal changes in the weather, as well as flooding, sand storms and temperature
  • Become aware of how the environment may be improved and sustained ( litter, recycling)
  • Do fieldwork investigations outside the classroom, - school garden, observe shapes of different leaves,
  • Different types of trees and shrubs.
  • Go on outing and field trips to support this learning.
  • Learn about people's lives and lifestyles.
  • They listen and respond to stories and use sources of information, to help them ask and answer questions.
  • They learn how the past is different from the present.
  • They find about the way of life of people in the more distant past who lived in the local area .
  • Look at the lives of significant men, women and children drawn from the history of the UAE [ rulers,].
  • They find out about the past from a range of sources of information [for example, stories, eye-witness accounts, pictures and photographs, artifacts, historic buildings and visits to museums, galleries and sites, and the use of ICT-based sources].

Develop investigative skills for Science

  • Ask questions [for example, 'How?', 'Why?', 'What will happen if ... ?'] and decide how they might find answers to them.
  • Follow simple instructions to control the risks to themselves and to others.
  • Explore, using the senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste as appropriate, and to make and record observations.
  • Make simple comparisons [for example, hand span, shoe size] and identify simple patterns.
  • Review their work and explain what they did to others. Compare what really happened, and what they expected .
  • They try to explain it, happened drawing on their knowledge and understanding to form conclusions.

 

 

Spelling Test

Once a week

Out of 10 marks

 

Mental Math Test

Once a week

Out of 10 marks

 

Arabic dictation

Once a week

Out of 10 marks

 

  
 
 
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