CURRICULUM
Language Skills: Pre-writing skills, journaling, fundamentals of basic grammar and sentence structure, rules for capitalization and of punctuation, and basic storytelling. Oral reading skills which enhance learning new words and letter/sound patterns, as well as an understanding of print and how it is read in English.
Penmanship: Learning to shape the letters of the alphabet properly, print and space them neatly. Developing small muscle strength and dexterity and good eye/hand coordination are keys to success in this area.
Spelling: Students learn to identify and spell weekly sight words aligned with each ELA unit. Students are learning visually from their spelling workbooks and hearing the words additionally through story time to enhance consistent repetition of those words.
Reading and Phonics: Basic reading skills are introduced at this time. Phonics and word building activities are integrated to build letter and word recognition. They use context clues as well as the sounds of the letters in the words to enable them to begin to “unlock” new words. Positive class interaction, daily reading, small group settings cause the children to become confident, enthusiastic readers. Computer games are introduced to build reading skills along with other phonics principles. The “one-and two-vowel rule, the “c-k” rule, rules for adding suffixes at the end of root words, and adding prefixes at the beginning of root words.
Math: Counting by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s, and also by 1’s from 1 to 200, odd and even numbers, number patterns and patterning. They write number sentences for story problems (single digits to 20), do basic computation (addition/subtraction with double digits), and perform problem solving. Measurement (linear, weight, and capacity), graphing, and classification by attributes (sorting). They will learn about place value, money, and shapes (recognition and classification).
History/Social Studies: We use the “Scholastic News” newspaper for current events. We incorporate special mini-units on community helpers, with fire safety and “Firefighter Pat”, seasons, family, “all about me”, friendship, cooperation, bus safety, apples “Johnny Appleseed”, Native Americans and Thanksgiving, “Christmas around the World”, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Black History, Dr. Seuss’ birthday and the Christian themes behind the celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day, Christmas and Resurrection Sunday.
Science: The purpose is to show how awesome and creative our God is and how fearfully and wonderfully made we all are. We do some small simple experiments (like cleaning pennies w/ salt and vinegar), and mini-units on magnets, insects, frogs and turtles, dinosaurs (and plants in the spring (including planting our own plants). With our butterfly unit we watch and document in daily journals the life cycle of 8 to 12 “painted lady” butterflies from larvae to chrysalis to butterfly. In the Spring, we set the butterflies free outside. It’s a great lesson for the children to see how detailed and specific our God is.
Health: Health includes learning about our families, our bodies, how they work, and how to keep them working properly through good nutrition and dental health.
SPECIAL SUBJECTS
Art, Chapel, Missions, Physical Education, Spanish, Music
ACADEMIC EVALUATION
Students are assessed by qualified teachers using both objective and subjective data to determine grade level readiness. Grading is completed during four (nine-week) report periods. Parent conferences are held following the first grading period. Additional conferences are scheduled upon request.
