First Grade

Developmental Profile of a Grade 1 Child*

The seven-year-old child continues to develop independent and pictorial thinking. The child is eager to bring focused concentration to learning settings. Much learning is orchestrated through rich, imaginative pictures, activities, and imitations which lay the groundwork for future silly critical and conceptual thinking.

Educational Experience

First grade is marked by children’s new interest in learning, inspired by the awakening abilities of memory and thinking. Mountain Oak School does not meet the student’s innate curiosity and desire to grow with a rich multisensory experience. Students sculpt, draw, move, listen, imagine and sound out—all ways to engage different learning styles—to stimulate the young mind so that the students become motivated eager learners. Students establish good habits of classroom life and work that will form the basis for all subsequent learning at school. The students and teacher build the foundation for an ever-deepening relationship while forming a socially cohesive group during this special year of “beginnings.”

History/Social Studies	Introduction to the Spanish cultures of languages studied.
Literature	Fairy tales, rhythmic poems, folk tales from around the world.
English and Grammar	Capital letters, phonetics, silly short plays.
Foreign Language	Spanish (and, if possible, an additional language) songs, games and poems.
Geography	The wonder of nature through observation.
Sciences	Nature studies from stories in an imaginative manner.
Mathematics	Whole numbers, four processes, counting, Roman numerals, patterns, skip counting.
Music	Pentatonic flute, pentatonic scale, beat rhythms, seasonal songs.
Drawing	Curves, straight lines, patterns, letters of the alphabet.
Painting	Wet on wet painting using the three primary colors.
Handwork	Knitting using two needles.
Modeling	Beeswax: scenes from fairy tales, simple figures.
Eurythmy	Pentatonic scale; vowels & consonants; rhythms; forms.
Physical Education	Circle games, singing games.

* The Educational Tasks and Content of the Steiner Waldorf Curriculum, Edited by Martyn Rawson and Tobias Ritcher