Grade 1 Mathematics Common Core Curriculum Standards
Bold-faced standards are the MDIRSS essential standards and the standards in regular font are supporting standards. Click on the green MDIRSS standards to see the unpacked version, list of resources, and corresponding performance rubric for that standard.
Operations and Algebraic Thinking (1.OA)
1. Use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.2
3. Apply properties of operations as strategies to add and subtract.3 Examples: If 8 + 3 = 11 is known, then 3 + 8 = 11 is also known. (Commutative property of addition.) To add 2 + 6 + 4, the second two numbers can be added to make a ten, so 2 + 6 + 4 = 2 + 10 = 12. (Associative property of addition.)
4. Understand subtraction as an unknown-addend problem. For example, subtract 10 – 8 by finding the number that makes 10 when added to 8.
5. Relate counting to addition and subtraction (e.g., by counting on 2 to add 2).
7. Understand the meaning of the equal sign, and determine if equations involving addition and subtraction are true or false. For example, which of the following equations are true and which are false? 6 = 6, 7 = 8 – 1, 5 + 2 = 2 + 5, 4 + 1 = 5 + 2.
8. Determine the unknown whole number in an addition or subtraction equation relating to three whole numbers. For example, determine the unknown number that makes the equation true in each of the equations 8 + ? = 11, 5 = [] – 3, 6 + 6 = [] .
Number and Operations in Base Ten (1.NBT)
1. Count to 120, starting at any number less than 120. In this range, read and write numerals and represent a number of objects with a written numeral.
a. 10 can be thought of as a bundle of ten ones — called a “ten.”
4. Add within 100, including adding a two-digit number and a one-digit number, and adding a two-digit number and a multiple of 10, using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used. Understand that in adding two-digit numbers, one adds tens and tens, ones and ones; and sometimes it is necessary to compose a ten.
6. Subtract multiples of 10 in the range 10-90 from multiples of 10 in the range 10-90 (positive or zero differences), using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a written method and explain the reasoning used.
Measurement and Data (1.MD)
2. Express the length of an object as a whole number of length units, by laying multiple copies of a shorter object (the length unit) end to end; understand that the length measurement of an object is the number of same-size length units that span it with no gaps or overlaps. Limit to contexts where the object being measured is spanned by a whole number of length units with no gaps or overlaps.
3. Tell and write time in hours and half-hours using analog and digital clocks.
Geometry (1.G)
3Students need not use formal terms for these properties.
4Students do not need to learn formal names such as “right rectangular prism.”


