APS first grade

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's not a ton of factual context, but lots of skills. It's the first time they really work on spelling, but also punctuation, capitalization, apostrophes, abbreviations (like Me and Ms.), sentence structure, paragraphs, etc. The also work on researching content and reformulating it in their own words. My 2nd grader came home with a two page essay and has done a few classes presentations with PowerPoint.

She doesn’t know any of this stuff yet, so this will all be new.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child is nearing the end of first grade, and I’m realizing that she didn’t seem to learn that much this year. Some facts about Jamestown and planets and plants, which she enjoyed learning, and then they reviewed A LOT of reading concepts and some math. I definitely understand that this is the foundation for important things that come later in school, and I’m grateful that this year was easy for her. But I’m curious if the challenging material starts next year in second grade? Or is next year a lot like this year?

She’s not complaining. She doesn’t seem bored. We’re fine. I’m not trying to bash teachers or APS. I just…wonder. If this is what elementary school is like, or if this is just what FIRST GRADE is like, because you have to give everyone a chance to get on the same page with reading?

Perhaps you would be more comfortable in private OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child is nearing the end of first grade, and I’m realizing that she didn’t seem to learn that much this year. Some facts about Jamestown and planets and plants, which she enjoyed learning, and then they reviewed A LOT of reading concepts and some math. I definitely understand that this is the foundation for important things that come later in school, and I’m grateful that this year was easy for her. But I’m curious if the challenging material starts next year in second grade? Or is next year a lot like this year?

She’s not complaining. She doesn’t seem bored. We’re fine. I’m not trying to bash teachers or APS. I just…wonder. If this is what elementary school is like, or if this is just what FIRST GRADE is like, because you have to give everyone a chance to get on the same page with reading?

Set your expectation that the first time your student will really be expected to learn factual content and remember it will be for the 4th grade social studies SOL. This ramps up in 5th grade with a science + a social studies SOL. Everything before that is "practice" content and mostly up to the teacher because students aren't evaluated on the content.

You can go through the Virginia SOL standards to see what your child was supposed to learn in 1st grade.

[Anonymous]

I have found 3rd grade is when things ramp up slightly, with a bit more acceleration in 4th snd 5th. I’d have especially modest expectations before then. We trusted our kid was learning something about being a human in early elementary and that was enough for us. (Both our kids were in the gifted program - hasn’t made an impression!).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child is nearing the end of first grade, and I’m realizing that she didn’t seem to learn that much this year. Some facts about Jamestown and planets and plants, which she enjoyed learning, and then they reviewed A LOT of reading concepts and some math. I definitely understand that this is the foundation for important things that come later in school, and I’m grateful that this year was easy for her. But I’m curious if the challenging material starts next year in second grade? Or is next year a lot like this year?

She’s not complaining. She doesn’t seem bored. We’re fine. I’m not trying to bash teachers or APS. I just…wonder. If this is what elementary school is like, or if this is just what FIRST GRADE is like, because you have to give everyone a chance to get on the same page with reading?

Set your expectation that the first time your student will really be expected to learn factual content and remember it will be for the 4th grade social studies SOL. This ramps up in 5th grade with a science + a social studies SOL. Everything before that is "practice" content and mostly up to the teacher because students aren't evaluated on the content.

You can go through the Virginia SOL standards to see what your child was supposed to learn in 1st grade.

This is certainly true about 4th grade social studies, but here’s a correction: in APS (which is what OP is talking about), students take a social studies SOL exam in 4th and a science SOL exam in 5th grade.

[Anonymous]

Honestly, if your kid can read early readers or is almost there and can do simple addition and maybe subtraction too by the end of the first grade, you're already ahead of the game. Things ramp up in 2nd and especially 3rd. Your child has their whole school career in front of them.

[Anonymous]

I've had the same experience with my 1st grader -- she's happy at school but really doesn't seem to have learned anything. We plan on adding a math supplement next year (because she enjoys math and has been asking for more math challenges). I'm not really sure I care about learning factual content, but I do with there was more encouragement of natural curiosity, more longterm/larger projects, and fewer worksheets (that seem very repetitive and which she claims to finish very quickly -- a claim I believe given the very detailed drawings on the back of the worksheet that she does once the work is complete). My reaction to her experience so far makes me think we'll end up in private by the end of elementary if she is admitted to a good school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Learning Reading, math, Jamestown, planets, plants seems pretty well rounded. If she’s happy and doesn’t seem bored I wouldn’t borrow trouble.

She didn’t learn any reading or math this year, though. They reviewed last year’s reading and math over and over. Well, that’s not entirely true. She learned a bit of new content in reading and math, but NOTHING like last year, when she learned to read, which was amazing.

None of the local public schools are really great at differentiation in elementary school. FCPS AAP does differentiate some, starting (I think) at 3rd/4th grade. So nearly all public elementary schools tend to focus on bringing the bottom kids up to average, so the school’s overall SOL scores will be acceptable. Kids who are strong in reading or math or whatever might get bored more easily in elementary.

Usually, by middle school there will be multiple levels of difficulty offered in math and other subjects, so differentiation does usually improve later on.