Fairfax County 1st grade curriculum

[Anonymous]

What should 1st graders be working on at this point in the school year?

My son attends a title 1 school and while I felt Kindergarten was great and the pace was appropriate, I am starting to have serious concerns with 1st grade. The class work he brings home seem insanely simple. Like filling in missing numbers from a table that only has numbers 1-50 and other basic counting and addition. I also notice that my son draws a lot on the back of his assignments which make me think he has a lot of free time.

he got his first homework packet last week, until now they have just been been told to read every night. They had to complete it by Friday. He had the entire thing done when he came home with it Monday; finished it all during SACC quiet time.

I will also say that I do not think my son is exceptionally advanced or anything like that. i have always considered him pretty average. He finished K reading at a mid 1st grade level and he is stronger at reading than math, so is't not like he is above and beyond. Of course this makes me even more concerned about whether or not he is being challenged. because it you can't challenge an average kid then something is wrong.

We have teacher conferences coming up and I want to get more information on what they are working on and the pace, obviously I don't want to offend the teacher though. What is normal at this point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What should 1st graders be working on at this point in the school year?

My son attends a title 1 school and while I felt Kindergarten was great and the pace was appropriate, I am starting to have serious concerns with 1st grade. The class work he brings home seem insanely simple. Like filling in missing numbers from a table that only has numbers 1-50 and other basic counting and addition. I also notice that my son draws a lot on the back of his assignments which make me think he has a lot of free time.

he got his first homework packet last week, until now they have just been been told to read every night. They had to complete it by Friday. He had the entire thing done when he came home with it Monday; finished it all during SACC quiet time.

I will also say that I do not think my son is exceptionally advanced or anything like that. i have always considered him pretty average. He finished K reading at a mid 1st grade level and he is stronger at reading than math, so is't not like he is above and beyond. Of course this makes me even more concerned about whether or not he is being challenged. because it you can't challenge an average kid then something is wrong.

We have teacher conferences coming up and I want to get more information on what they are working on and the pace, obviously I don't want to offend the teacher though. What is normal at this point?

The basic homework packet at our school is very simple too (not that simple though. More like counting by 2's, 5's. writing in a short reading log). The teachers also post extension work which is a bit more in depth but not required.

[Anonymous]

We are at a very wealthy FCPS school (now in second grade) and my son never received homework last year other than read for 15 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are at a very wealthy FCPS school (now in second grade) and my son never received homework last year other than read for 15 minutes.

Uh... Do you mean you are wealthy?
Because the FCPS where your child attends is not wealthy.
(Me thinks you mean the area is high income.)
And while we're on it, how does the income have anything to do with the homework? Smh.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at a very wealthy FCPS school (now in second grade) and my son never received homework last year other than read for 15 minutes.

Uh... Do you mean you are wealthy?
Because the FCPS where your child attends is not wealthy.
(Me thinks you mean the area is high income.)
And while we're on it, how does the income have anything to do with the homework? Smh.

I mentioned it because OP said they were at a Title 1 school. My point was that I don't the fact that the hw seems too easy has anything to do with the school's neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Homework should be easy.

Perhaps some are even moving away from it? There was a recent Washington Post article about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Homework should be easy.

Perhaps some are even moving away from it? There was a recent Washington Post article about it.

Homework should be challenging, not busy work. The OP has a point and should be concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at a very wealthy FCPS school (now in second grade) and my son never received homework last year other than read for 15 minutes.

Uh... Do you mean you are wealthy?
Because the FCPS where your child attends is not wealthy.
(Me thinks you mean the area is high income.)
And while we're on it, how does the income have anything to do with the homework? Smh.

Pedantic asshole. The OP mentioned the school was a title 1, implying that may be the reason for the simple homework. Try to read better and not be such a reactionary. Jesus.

Homework in first should not be hard. It is first grade. In my experience, it always seems like nothing is going on, but man, do they learn so much behind the scenes that we don't see in homework or schoolwork. Just try to sit back and relax for a bit-let it play out. I am sure your child will be great!

[Anonymous]

Homework at this age is redenduant. The last thing kids need to do after sitting for 6 hours is to sit some more. 15-20 minutes of reading is the only acceptable homework at that age (imo).

I think it's good for kids to know how to quietly entertain themselves when they are done early (i.e. Drawing on the back of the paper). It's a skill too that needs to be practiced. And even if he isn't top of the class, if he's smart then at some point in his schooling career he will be bored and need to do that. But don't forget that different kids have different strengths. Maybe your kid finds reading easy but some concepts in math will make him stumble more than his friends who had a hard time reading. Or maybe the teacher's objectives in the 1-50 chart has to do with number formation and handwriting and not pure knowledge of the first 50 numbers. There's so much more that goes into the classroom than you think. Be patient and as long as he's happy, no need to raise concerns. I say this as a mom of a kid who was 4 grades above reading level.

[Anonymous]

My friend has a child in 1st grade in Catholic and gets more than 1 hour of homework a night. Already has homework and tests in science, social studies, and spelling to study for on the computer. Somewhere in-between no homework and that much homework would be great, but I liked that the child was practicing many different things at home. One thing I've noticed about FCPS is that they only assign math homework, especially in the younger grades K-2, as if the other subjects don't matter. I think that's partly why FCPS homework if they have it at all is pretty boring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at a very wealthy FCPS school (now in second grade) and my son never received homework last year other than read for 15 minutes.

Uh... Do you mean you are wealthy?
Because the FCPS where your child attends is not wealthy.
(Me thinks you mean the area is high income.)
And while we're on it, how does the income have anything to do with the homework? Smh.

I mentioned it because OP said they were at a Title 1 school. My point was that I don't the fact that the hw seems too easy has anything to do with the school's neighborhood.

OP here and mentioning wealth is not at all out of line and was part of my question. My concern was that because we are in a title 1 school (high FARMS and ESOL) that the first grade pace was extra slow/a lot of time was being spent at the beginning of the year on reinforcing what was done in Kindergarten . I was curious if other school in FCPS are doing more advanced things or if what my son is working on is typical of first grade. I do know that a lot more time in the class is spent on "language arts" so i can see why a lot of the homework is math. I was just surprised that a lot of the math is basic addition (adding numbers 1-10).

Others made some good point about there being a lot more learning going on behind the scenes/aside from what I am seeing in terms of worksheets that are coming home. We do have teacher conferences coming up so I will see if the teacher can give me more info on what they are doing in the classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Homework at this age is redenduant. The last thing kids need to do after sitting for 6 hours is to sit some more. 15-20 minutes of reading is the only acceptable homework at that age (imo).

I think it's good for kids to know how to quietly entertain themselves when they are done early (i.e. Drawing on the back of the paper). It's a skill too that needs to be practiced. And even if he isn't top of the class, if he's smart then at some point in his schooling career he will be bored and need to do that. But don't forget that different kids have different strengths. Maybe your kid finds reading easy but some concepts in math will make him stumble more than his friends who had a hard time reading. Or maybe the teacher's objectives in the 1-50 chart has to do with number formation and handwriting and not pure knowledge of the first 50 numbers. There's so much more that goes into the classroom than you think. Be patient and as long as he's happy, no need to raise concerns. I say this as a mom of a kid who was 4 grades above reading level.

Op here.

Thank you for pointing this out! This is not something I though about, but definitely something to keep in mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at a very wealthy FCPS school (now in second grade) and my son never received homework last year other than read for 15 minutes.

Uh... Do you mean you are wealthy?
Because the FCPS where your child attends is not wealthy.
(Me thinks you mean the area is high income.)
And while we're on it, how does the income have anything to do with the homework? Smh.

I mentioned it because OP said they were at a Title 1 school. My point was that I don't the fact that the hw seems too easy has anything to do with the school's neighborhood.

OP here and mentioning wealth is not at all out of line and was part of my question. My concern was that because we are in a title 1 school (high FARMS and ESOL) that the first grade pace was extra slow/a lot of time was being spent at the beginning of the year on reinforcing what was done in Kindergarten . I was curious if other school in FCPS are doing more advanced things or if what my son is working on is typical of first grade. I do know that a lot more time in the class is spent on "language arts" so i can see why a lot of the homework is math. I was just surprised that a lot of the math is basic addition (adding numbers 1-10).

Others made some good point about there being a lot more learning going on behind the scenes/aside from what I am seeing in terms of worksheets that are coming home. We do have teacher conferences coming up so I will see if the teacher can give me more info on what they are doing in the classroom.

Shorter pp: She wants to know if they go extra slow in Title 1 schools to accommodate the poor brown kids.

The answer, pp, is no. Most of the first grading period of any grade in ES is spent reviewing what was learned previously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at a very wealthy FCPS school (now in second grade) and my son never received homework last year other than read for 15 minutes.

Uh... Do you mean you are wealthy?
Because the FCPS where your child attends is not wealthy.
(Me thinks you mean the area is high income.)
And while we're on it, how does the income have anything to do with the homework? Smh.

I mentioned it because OP said they were at a Title 1 school. My point was that I don't the fact that the hw seems too easy has anything to do with the school's neighborhood.

OP here and mentioning wealth is not at all out of line and was part of my question. My concern was that because we are in a title 1 school (high FARMS and ESOL) that the first grade pace was extra slow/a lot of time was being spent at the beginning of the year on reinforcing what was done in Kindergarten . I was curious if other school in FCPS are doing more advanced things or if what my son is working on is typical of first grade. I do know that a lot more time in the class is spent on "language arts" so i can see why a lot of the homework is math. I was just surprised that a lot of the math is basic addition (adding numbers 1-10).

Others made some good point about there being a lot more learning going on behind the scenes/aside from what I am seeing in terms of worksheets that are coming home. We do have teacher conferences coming up so I will see if the teacher can give me more info on what they are doing in the classroom.

Shorter pp: She wants to know if they go extra slow in Title 1 schools to accommodate the poor brown kids.

The answer, pp, is no. Most of the first grading period of any grade in ES is spent reviewing what was learned previously.

It's a legit question, although I will say my son is a minority and has fairly dark skin . One has to wonder.. if there are kids who are behind does that slow down the rest of the class? heck that is the reason that half my neighborhood sends their kids to private school and why everyone on here talks about "the good pyramid" and "bad" schools.

[Anonymous]

It's a legit question, although I will say my son is a minority and has fairly dark skin . One has to wonder.. if there are kids who are behind does that slow down the rest of the class? heck that is the reason that half my neighborhood sends their kids to private school and why everyone on here talks about "the good pyramid" and "bad" schools.

OP, I say this as a former first grade teacher and parent of two college graduates.

I gave almost no homework other than "to read" every night when I was teaching school. Kids who are in school all day need to play when they go home. Period.

My own kids had almost no homework in first grade other than "to read". One was an outstanding student--the other was a good student. Both succeeded in high school and college.

As for drawing on the back of the paper, that is not an unusual option for a child to do when he finished his work. When I taught, I gave the kids several options to do when they finished their work--ranging from reading a book, doing another worksheet, drawing on the back of the paper, etc. When the teacher gives a group assignment, all the kids are not likely to do the paper in the same time frame. There is VALUE in this: learning to work quietly; being respectful of others who are not finished yet; entertaining themselves; etc. Also, the teacher is probably working with small groups during this time and wants the kids to be considerate of her time with other children.

Now, if your son is doing hours of "drawing on the back" that is a problem. Likely, it is only five or ten minutes. That is not unreasonable.

Sounds to me like your son is doing just fine. And, remember, hours of homework is not necessarily a good thing. At least, that is my opinion. Ten minutes of homework used to be the benchmark for first grade. I think that is about right.