What should a Grade 1 student know in math?
Adding and subtracting within 20, place value to 120, telling time, measuring lengths, reading simple charts, and naming shapes.
Grade 1 math practice — adaptive, verified, parent-run
8,652 verified practice questions across 82 Common Core concepts for Grade 1
What should a Grade 1 student know?
First grade is number sense. Your child learns to add and subtract within 20, understands what the digits in a two-digit number mean, and counts to 120. These are the skills every later year builds on.
Alongside arithmetic, first graders measure and compare lengths, tell time, read simple data displays, and work with shapes — composing and recognizing them. Short daily practice at this age beats weekend cramming by a wide margin.
The curriculum map
Every Common Core concept we cover for Grade 1
Geometry
- Build and draw shapes with defining attributes
- Compose 2D shapes to create composite shapes
- Compose 3D shapes to create composite shapes
- Compose new shapes from composite shapes
- Compose two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes
- Describe equal shares using fraction vocabulary
- Distinguish defining and non-defining attributes of shapes
- Distinguish defining from non-defining attributes
- Identify defining attributes of shapes
- Partition shapes into equal shares
- Partition shapes into fourths
- Partition shapes into halves
- Understand that more equal shares creates smaller shares
Measurement and Data
- Answer how-many-more or how-many-fewer questions about data
- Answer questions about total data points
- Compare lengths indirectly using a third object
- Express length using non-standard units
- Measure length by iterating units
- Measure lengths indirectly and by iterating length units
- Order three objects by length
- Organize data into categories
- Organize, represent, and interpret data
- Represent data with charts or tables
- Tell and write time in hours and half-hours
- Tell time in half-hours on analog clock
- Tell time in hours on analog clock
- Tell time on a digital clock
- Understand length measurement as unit iteration
- Write time in hours and half-hours
Number and Operations in Base Ten
- Add a two-digit and a one-digit number
- Add a two-digit number and a multiple of 10
- Add within 100 using place value strategies
- Compare two-digit numbers using place value
- Compare two two-digit numbers
- Compose a ten when adding two-digit numbers
- Compose teen numbers as a ten and ones
- Count to 120 and read/write numerals
- Count to 120 starting at any number
- Explain addition reasoning using place value
- Explain subtraction reasoning using place value
- Mentally find 10 less than a two-digit number
- Mentally find 10 more or 10 less
- Mentally find 10 more than a two-digit number
- Read numerals to 120
- Record comparisons with inequality symbols
- Subtract multiples of 10
- Subtract multiples of 10 from multiples of 10
- Understand decade numbers as groups of tens
- Understand place value of two-digit numbers
- Understand ten as a bundle of ten ones
- Write numerals to 120
Operations and Algebraic Thinking
- Add and subtract within 20 with fluency within 10
- Add three whole numbers with sum within 20
- Apply associative property of addition
- Apply commutative property of addition
- Apply properties of operations to add and subtract
- Count on to add within 20
- Decompose to subtract through ten
- Determine if equations are true or false
- Determine unknowns in equations
- Find unknown in addition equations
- Find unknown in subtraction equations
- Fluently add within 10
- Fluently subtract within 10
- Make ten to add
- Relate counting back to subtraction
- Relate counting on to addition
- Relate counting to addition and subtraction
- Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction
- Represent three-addend problems with equations
- Represent word problems with equations
- Solve add-to word problems within 20
- Solve compare word problems within 20
- Solve put-together and take-apart word problems within 20
- Solve take-from word problems within 20
- Solve word problems with three addends
- Think of subtraction as finding the missing addend
- Understand subtraction as unknown-addend problem
- Understand the equal sign and evaluate equations
- Understand the meaning of the equal sign
- Use addition-subtraction relationship to solve
- Use doubles to add
Diagnosis, not just marking
Where Grade 1 students actually go wrong
For these concepts we've written up the specific mistaken rules children apply — what each one sounds like at the kitchen table, and why it feels right to them. Free to read, no account needed.
Grade 1 math — questions parents ask
How much math practice does a Grade 1 student need each day?
Short and daily beats long and rare. Most families set a 10–30 minute time budget; Algo School sizes each Grade 1 session to that budget and to your child's pace — a quick day never becomes a marathon.
How does Algo School help with Grade 1 math at home?
Algo School generates short daily sessions from 8,652 verified Grade 1 questions, checks every answer, and adapts the next session to what your child actually mastered. When they're stuck, an answer-guarded AI tutor coaches with questions and hints — and you get an email brief after every tutoring session. Homeschool families use the per-concept mastery record as their assessment evidence.
Math practice for every band — home and homeschool, Grade 1 through Algebra 2.
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