Grade 1 — what has to be built
A scoping review before any Grade 1 artifact is written. Grade 4 Mathematics is the reference implementation; this asks what changes when the same brief is applied to all five Grade 1 learning areas and to six- and seven-year-olds.
1. The five learning areas
MATATAG cuts Grades 1–2 to five learning areas. There is no Science, no Araling Panlipunan and no MAPEH at this level.
| Learning area | What it covers at Grade 1 |
|---|---|
| GMRC | Good Manners and Right Conduct — courtesy, honesty, respect, responsibility |
| Language | Oral language, vocabulary, grammar — in the mother tongue |
| Makabansa | Self, family, school, community, national identity; absorbs the AP / MAPEH / EPP territory |
| Mathematics | Shapes, counting to 100, place value to 2 digits, addition and subtraction, fractions ½ and ¼, money |
| Reading and Literacy | Emergent literacy — phonological awareness, letter–sound correspondence, decoding |
2. What the brief asks for, per subject
| # | Artifact | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Syllabus | Full year, three terms |
| 2 | Lesson plan | One 45-minute session, MATATAG Lesson Exemplar format |
| 3.1 | Slide presentation | Single self-contained HTML file |
| 3.2 | Browser-based interactive game or activity | The brief's own wording — "or activity" matters, see §5 |
| 3.3.1 | Offline individual activity | 3 options |
| 3.3.2 | Offline group/team activity | 2 options |
| — | Wall chart | Companion, not in the brief; every grade ships one |
The inventory
| Per subject | × 5 subjects | |
|---|---|---|
| Syllabus | 1 | 5 |
| Lesson plan | 1 | 5 |
| Slide deck | 1 file (~12–15 slides) | 5 files, ~65 slides |
| Interactive game/activity | 1 | 5 |
| Offline activities | 5 (3 individual + 2 group) | 25 |
| Wall chart | 1 | 5 |
| Landing page | 1 | 5 + 1 grade index |
| Files | 7 | ~36 |
3. Four constraints that do not apply to Grade 4
3.1 Learners cannot be assumed to read ⚠️ the big one
This is not an inference. The curriculum guide says it, three separate times, in the Mathematics competencies themselves:
Q1 · 13. solve problems (given orally or in pictures) involving addition with sums up to 20 Q2 · 10. solve problems (given orally or in pictures) involving addition with sums up to 100 Q3 · 8. solve subtraction problems (given orally or in pictures) where both numbers are less than 20
Reading and Literacy is a subject at Grade 1 precisely because decoding is still being taught. So every text-carrying design decision in the Grade 4 set collapses:
| Grade 4 does this | Grade 1 cannot |
|---|---|
| "Read the number in words, then build it" | Learner can't read the words |
| Written feedback naming the misconception | Learner can't read the feedback |
| Round names, instructions, button labels as text | All of it |
| Learner works alone on a device | See §3.4 |
Everything instructional must arrive as picture, number, symbol, or the teacher's voice.
3.2 Mother tongue, not English
Grades 1–3 sit under MTB-MLE: the mother tongue is the medium of instruction for all learning areas except the Filipino and English subjects. All five Grade 1 sets are therefore written wholly in the mother tongue — syllabus, lesson plan, slides, interface strings, activities. Filipino is the practical default; DepEd recognises 19 MTB-MLE languages.
Open question the Language CG must settle. Grade 1's Language and Reading and Literacy learning areas teach language itself. Whether they are taught in the mother tongue, or are the vehicle for introducing Filipino and English, is a question about those subjects' own CGs — which are not yet in hand. Do not guess; this determines the language of two of the five sets.
3.3 Two subjects need audio, and audio is a real constraint
Phonological awareness — rhyme, syllable, initial sound — is auditory by definition. A silent phonics game is a contradiction in terms.
| Option | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Embed base64 audio in the single HTML file | Technically fine (~330 KB for 30 one-second clips), but we cannot record Filipino audio in this environment — an asset-acquisition blocker, not a technical one |
speechSynthesis (Web Speech API) |
Rejected. Filipino voice availability is not guaranteed on the low-end Android and old desktop hardware this repository targets, and a phonics game that silently fails on half its devices is worse than none |
| Teacher-voiced — the screen shows the stimulus, the teacher says the sound | Recommended. Zero assets, genuinely offline, and closer to how a Grade 1 class actually runs |
3.4 One screen, forty-five learners
A Grade 4 learner might get a shared tablet. A Grade 1 classroom of 45 realistically has one screen — a projector, or the teacher's own phone or laptop.
So the Grade 1 interactive artifact is whole-class and teacher-driven, not per-learner. That changes the design brief concretely: large enough to read from the back of the room, one interaction at a time, advanced by the teacher, with the class answering aloud or by hand signal. It also makes §3.3's teacher-voiced approach the natural fit rather than a compromise.
4. Where the Grade 4 template transfers
| Artifact | Transfers? | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Syllabus | ✅ | Structure holds exactly. Content per subject; three-term calendar already in place |
| Lesson plan | ✅ | Lesson Exemplar headings are DepEd's and apply to every learning area |
| Offline activities | ✅ | Strongest transfer. Concrete materials suit six-year-olds better than they suit nine-year-olds |
| Wall chart | ✅ | Format holds; content and visual system change |
| Slide deck | ⚠️ | Mechanics hold. Text budget collapses — slides become almost wholly pictorial |
| Interactive game | ❌ | Varies enormously by subject. See §5 |
| "Ten Times" design system | ❌ | Built entirely around place value and ×10. Nothing in GMRC, Makabansa or Reading has an equivalent organising idea. Each subject needs its own, or Grade 1 needs one built on a different principle |
5. The interactive artifact, subject by subject
ARTIFACT-SPEC.md §1 chose Mathematics as the spine explicitly because "numeric answers are
automatically checkable, which makes real-time formative feedback possible without a server."
That reasoning does not survive the move to the other four subjects.
| Subject | Fit | What it should be |
|---|---|---|
| Mathematics | Strong | A real game. Shape sorter, ten-frame counter, number-line ordering, coin counter. Numerals and shapes are language-neutral, so it needs almost no text — the best fit in the whole grade |
| Reading and Literacy | Moderate | Letter-sound matching, rhyme and syllable work — teacher-voiced. Visual-only portions (letter recognition, left-to-right tracking) work unaided |
| Makabansa | Moderate | Picture identification (flag, symbols, community helpers), sequencing a daily routine. Auto-checkable but shallow relative to what the subject is actually about |
| Language | Weak | Core content is oral. Picture–vocabulary matching is the only cleanly checkable slice |
| GMRC | Poor — do not force a game | See below |
Why GMRC should not be a quiz
A multiple-choice game on moral scenarios teaches learners to identify the answer an adult wants. That is a different skill from conduct, and rewarding it with points actively works against what the subject is for.
The brief already allows the alternative: it asks for a "browser-based interactive game or activity." GMRC should take the second branch — an unscored interactive such as a branching story where every choice plays out and is discussed, or a class-routine builder the group fills in together. No points, no correct answer, no leaderboard.
This is worth deciding deliberately rather than defaulting, because it sets the precedent for every values-adjacent subject in the later grades.
6. What is needed before building
| Blocker | Status |
|---|---|
| Four curriculum guides — GMRC, Language, Makabansa, Reading and Literacy | Download links catalogued in grade-1-file-manifest.md; files not obtained. Only Mathematics is verified. Four of five subjects cannot be written accurately without these |
| Grade 1 Budget of Work (all 5 subjects) | Same — links catalogued, files not obtained. Sets the Term 1 week anchor |
| Language decision for Language and Reading and Literacy | See §3.2 — needs those two CGs |
| A Grade 1 design system | "Ten Times" does not transfer. Needs designing before the first slide is drawn |
Mathematics 1 is the only subject that could be built accurately today, because its CG is already committed to this repository.
7. Recommended order
- Mathematics 1 first. Its CG is verified and in hand, its game is the strongest fit in the grade, and it is the direct vertical counterpart of the Grade 4 set — which makes it the honest test of whether the template survives a six-year-old. Anchor at the Term 1 week the Budget of Work indicates; CG Quarter 1 leads with 2-dimensional shapes, with Number and Algebra following.
- Design the Grade 1 visual system while building it, so it is derived from a real artifact rather than invented in the abstract.
- Reading and Literacy next — it stress-tests the teacher-voiced approach, which every later non-numeric subject will depend on.
- Makabansa, Language, GMRC last, with GMRC's unscored interactive settled as a decision before it is built.
Building Mathematics 1 first also answers the question that matters most for the remaining nine grades: whether one template can carry both ends of the range. If it holds for a six-year-old counting to 20 and a nine-year-old reading six-digit numerals, the middle grades are safe.