Grade 1 – English Medium

A Note from the authors (for parents and teachers)

The second book in the series “One Book – Complete Curriculum” [OBCC] is in your hands. This book fulfills the curriculum requirements of Grade 1. Even though the motive and purpose of this series have been communicated in detail in our note in the Pre-KG/KG book, it is important to clear some further points. After reading the first book of this series (Pre-KG/KG), some readers critiqued that it contains all the same material that is already present in most Pre-KG/KG books.

With no apologies, it is certainly the case – but for reasons. The pre-KG/KG book of this series includes all the essential/core topics and themes that a Pre-KG/KG student needs to learn at this stage. Is it appropriate to teach emerging technologies, quantum computing, Shakespeare, Ghalib, and the complex questions of science and mathematics to four or five-year-old children? We wish our children to become Einstein, but forget that at such an early age, Einstein was himself a child as well who acquired step-by-step education and eventually became the greatest scientist of the 20th century. Having said this, the readers – especially the parents and teachers are requested not to have unrealistic expectations from the OBCC series.

Besides, when presenting the aims and objectives of this series (in Pre-KG/KG book), we already made it clear that this series presents the “key curricular content” in a single volume. Without adhering to any single educational or schooling system, this key curricular content contains material common to the standard material taught at this grade level. What we are doing is to analyze various curriculum outlines, identifying the central curricular and teaching points, and then presenting them in as brief and simple a manner as possible, with each Grade’s material collected in a single volume. All of this appears simple, but in practice, reading dozens of local and international curricula, analyzing them, identifying the commonalities, and then – keeping these commonalities in mind – creating a curriculum book that is incredibly simple and uncomplicated. Seemingly simple, this task demands a great deal of attention, focus, and time to accomplish.

Let us remind the readers once again that our methodology is to start from the simple and basic, and then gradually proceed to the complex details, so that the material remains accessible to both students and teachers. The curriculum content has been kept as simple as possible so that even less educated parents, and those with less time, can also help their children gain from this book. The same methodology was employed in the Pre-KG/KG book, the current book, and you will see this again in subsequent books as well.

We are especially grateful to all those readers who took the time to point out mistakes and omissions in the Pre-KG/KG book. In light of this critique, we were able to make the requisite changes and bring out a much-improved edition. We have tried to make the current book as free of errors and omissions as possible, but if you see any errors or mistakes, please give us your feedback so that we are able to make the corrections in our subsequent editions. Once again, we especially request teachers and educationists to read and critique this book.

With thanks,

Zeeshan-ul-Hassan Usmani
Aleem Ahmad