I was in first grade in 1970 (yikes I'm old!). We did ave standardized tests even back then. They weren't percentiles but percentages, so not normed like today's tests.
Are you sure? I came along a decade later, and I remember taking the ITBS throughout elementary school. Those were percentile ranked.
To be honest, I have no idea what purpose that testing served. Except for the special ed class, there was no such thing as differentiation. If the teachers were being evaluated based on it, nobody told us.
I took standardized tests in first grade in 1972. In fifth grade, one of our teachers spent ten minutes or so explaining standardized test percentiles to us because she was afraid that people who scored at the 50th percentile would think they had failed. My recollection is that they used the tests to see how we were learning, not to assess the teachers.
Kindergarten was a half day and was mostly about socialization, but we learned our letters and numbers, starting writing capital letters, learned to tell time, and did a lot of art. We had circle time every day and did show and tell. We had nap time every day. I remember being tested with a fine motor skill test (draw between lines that were wavy/of decreasing separation/etc.).
Ability grouping started in first grade and continued through 12th grade. No one was treated badly for being in the "wrong" group because there was no wrong group from our perspective. A boy was held back into our class in 4th grade (do they still do that?), and by the time we had formed our line and walked into the building on the first day of school, we had learned of what happened, accepted it, and made him one of us.
There was no homework until 6th or 7th grade. I don't remember getting it in 6th grade, but I might have and just forgotten about it. Sixth grade was still elementary school then, and 7th and 8th were junior high.
We had morning recess through sixth grade and an hour for lunch.
ETA: we did lots of writing, but it wasn't like today. In first grade, we learned how to form letters and did a lot of practice (e.g., "My name is Valerie" several times, etc.). By second grade, we were learning how to make smaller letters and were writing stories. Cursive came in third grade, and by fourth, we were writing out answers to questions in science, English, and Social Studies. This increased in 5th. No one was expected to write essays or reports with references until 7th grade. Starting in 5th, we did a lot of work with grammar and punctuation, though. I'm appalled at how little these two things are emphasized today.
ETA again: we had art, music, and PE through all of elementary.
