K–5 • DISCOVER & MASTER
Elementary school should make children competent and curious.
The first six years establish the mechanics that make later independence possible: decoding, reading fluency, writing, arithmetic, measurement, observation, vocabulary, broad knowledge, and persistence.
Explore the grades
Each grade has a reader-friendly overview, representative projects, coded technical standards, and a mastery check.
KINDERGARTEN
The World Is Interesting
Letters, sounds, stories, counting, shapes, nature, observation, songs, movement, and building.
GRADE 1
I Can Read Things Myself
Decoding, connected reading, addition and subtraction, measurement, time, money, and simple experiments.
GRADE 2
How Does That Work?
Fluency, paragraphs, multiplication concepts, clocks, money, maps, simple machines, and habitats.
GRADE 3
The Big World
Writing, multiplication and division, fractions, geography, ancient civilizations, science, and evidence basics.
GRADE 4
Civilization, Invention & Minnesota
Complex information, fractions, graphs, engineering, Minnesota geography and institutions, and tools.
GRADE 5
America & the Physical World
Substantial reading, essays, fractions and decimals, controlled investigations, U.S. history, budgeting, and building.
Developmental purpose
The dominant emotional character of K–5 should be wonder, humor, discovery, accomplishment, imagination, and the satisfaction of mastery.
Content guardrails
K–2 instruction should not be organized around genocide, sexual violence, racial guilt, political identity, systemic-oppression theories, or ideological activism. Grades 3–5 may address difficult history when needed for chronology and understanding, but treatment should remain factual, concise, non-graphic, and developmentally appropriate.
End-of-Grade-5 mastery gate
Students should demonstrate fluent reading, coherent writing, multiplication and division fluency, competency with fractions and decimals, measurement, foundational science and geography, the ability to follow written instructions, distinguish observation from inference, and apply basic budgeting and practical numeracy.
Return to the Curriculum hub or continue to Grades 6–8 →.
The Minnesota Learning Project 