Curriculum

Using the best current technology and innovative teaching methods, we provide a strong academic foundation with a core curriculum of language arts, science, social studies, and mathematics. Weekly visits to the library introduce and develop research skills that our students can use across the curriculum.

Art
Our art curriculum at every grade level is organized around three interrelated themes: Creating Art, Looking at Art, and Living With Art. Lessons provide opportunities for creative self-expression; for the development of perceptual awareness, including art appreciation; and for recognizing beauty in both the natural world and the constructed environment.

Students learn to manipulate color and form using a wide variety of materials, tools, and techniques in drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, printing, and architecture. Information on the role of art in human history and the development of artistic styles and periods is integrated into every lesson.

Computer Studies
Every classroom is equipped with one or more networked computers with Internet access and CD-ROM capability, as well as software that supports the core curriculum. The Lower School Computer Laboratory has 25 computers, a scanner, and digital cameras and camcorders. Classes meet there twice weekly in order to use its resources to complete assignments in their core subjects.

Students in Grades 1 and 2 learn keyboarding skills and basic word processing, graphics, and spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Word, KidPix, PowerPoint, and Excel. They create slide shows with images, animation, and sound, and they learn to use the Internet.

In Grades 3- 5, students improve their keyboarding skills and increase their confidence using multiple software applications. They create research presentations in PowerPoint, create Web pages with animations, and learn image-editing software. They also create more advanced Excel spreadsheets using functions such as averaging and rounding.

Foreign Language
Introduced in Grade 4, our Spanish instruction offers students an opportunity to learn one foreign language before making the choice to continue Spanish or begin Latin in Middle School. Exposed to the peoples and cultures of the countries where Spanish is spoken, students gain a heightened appreciation for cultural diversity and sharpen their cross-cultural awareness and sensitivity.

Language Arts
In language arts, our students learn critical thinking, effective communication, and the skills necessary for proficiency in spelling, vocabulary, grammar, phonics, reading, and writing. Always building on what each child knows, we present individual students with materials that will offer challenge yet permit success. We monitor each student's progress closely through monthly evaluations.

Our Balanced Reading Program consists of four components that are used each day: reading aloud, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading. We introduce new texts by reading aloud, inviting students to share the reading when they encounter words and phrases they know.

We move on to guided reading, in which the teacher helps a small group of students of similar ability to read a book. At each session, the children learn basic reading skills, including phonics and comprehension. The teacher helps them develop strategies to deal with increasingly difficult texts; these strategies include recognizing familiar words by sight and understanding the meaning of words from other clues in a sentence. The children also learn to correct themselves if a guess doesn't make sense.

Our goal is to help each child advance to fluency, capable of reading silently and independently and filled with enthusiasm for books.

Mathematics
We teach mathematics using Math Explorations and Applications (SRA/McGraw Hill), a program that encourages discovery of mathematical concepts; emphasizes the traditional learning of basic arithmetic facts; and gives a strong foundation in computational skills, particularly mental computation.

In Kindergarten, our goal is to nurture students' emerging abilities to count, match, sort, order, compare, see patterns, do simple addition and subtraction, and understand space and time. They learn to graph, measure, tell time, read a calendar, perform simple money exchanges, and use a basic calculator.

In Grades 1-4, our students advance their knowledge of mathematical concepts in 13 topic areas: problem solving, communication, reasoning, connections, estimation, number sense and numeration, whole number operations, whole number computation, geometry and spatial sense, measurement, statistics and probability, fractions and decimals, and patterns and relationships. In Grade 5, new topics are introduced-number systems and number theory, algebra, and geometry-and both statistics and probability are given increased emphasis as separate topics.

Each year, our students' grasp of mathematical concepts deepens with repeated exposure at increasingly higher levels to the same topic areas.

Music
Our music instruction for students in Grades K-2 emphasizes singing and rhythmic movement. The children learn folk songs, dances, and movement games from the United States and around the world. They also explore rhythm with speech, rhymes, and body percussion, and advance to using basic percussion instruments.

In addition to these activities, students in Grades 3-5 begin to read music in several keys. They also study music theory and history, dramatize books with music, and learn to play the recorder.

Physical Education
In Grades K-5, physical education is integrated into the daily schedule of classes. At every grade level, we help children develop and refine their movement and object control skills; we stress the importance of physical fitness for a healthy life; we emphasize safety; and we encourage self-discipline, cooperation, sportsmanship, and respect for equipment and property.

Kindergarten students work on skills like skipping, jumping, galloping, and jogging. In Grades 1 and 2, students learn to play simple ball games and to pace themselves while jogging longer distances. Students in Grade 3 continue to increase their endurance in jogging, and they learn skills that will prepare them to play soccer, volleyball, basketball, and field games. In Grades 4 and 5, students learn all aspects of net ball/volleyball, including rules and scoring, and they are able to play complete games.
 
Religion
Our religious studies program is designed to nurture each child's spirituality and to strengthen individual faith. We support what is learned in the classroom by encouraging daily personal prayer and by providing frequent opportunities for formal worship and community service.

For Kindergarten students, religion classes focus on personal communication with God, gratitude for God's gifts to them and their families, and faith in God's love for them and for the entire world. Once a week, we visit the Rosary Chapel to reinforce these values.

Beginning in Grade 1, a Catholic instructor teaches Catholic studies, and children of other faiths attend Interfaith Religion classes. Although our Interfaith Religion curriculum proceeds from the foundation of Christianity, we teach students to respect the sacred in other religions.

All Lower School students come together once a month to celebrate Mass as a school community. Each class sponsors one Mass during the year.

Science
Our science curriculum, the Full Option Science System, combines life science, earth science, physical science, and chemistry. Students at each grade level receive progressively more sophisticated instruction in the scientific method: They gather existing information, form hypotheses and predict expected outcomes, experiment and collect data, organize results, and draw conclusions based on their own work. Each year they become increasingly confident using the equipment and tools of science. Beginning in Grade 4, students maintain a portfolio of the work they accomplish during the year.

Our instruction emphasizes age-appropriate activities using hands-on inquiry techniques and field experiences. Kindergarten students, for example, study the growth of molds and experiment with the powers of magnets. Students in Grade 1 learn about the properties of solids and liquids and study the life cycles, structures, and behaviors of a variety of insects and animals. In Grade 2, students become aware of scientific laws as they study balance and motion; they also study weather and the propagation of plants.

Students in Grade 3 make a comprehensive study of their own skeletal and muscular systems; they also explore the properties of water. In Grade 4, studies in earth science focus on rocks and minerals, landforms, erosion and deposition of land, and volcanoes and earthquakes. Students learn about lever and pulley systems in physical science, and they explore the history of scientific ideas and inventions. Students in Grade 5 study environmental science, magnetism and electricity, the physics of sound, and basic concepts in chemistry.

Social Studies
In our social studies program, Kindergarten students start their exploration of culture and history by studying themselves, their families, and their communities. They begin to understand human diversity as they talk about how people are the same and how they are different. Classroom activities focus on developing leadership skills and good citizenship and on nurturing the children's sense of responsibility to improve the human condition.

As our students mature, we introduce at each grade level information that will help them understand human and environmental interaction; the movement of people, goods, and ideas; and cultural development through science and mathematics, literature, art, music, dance, and language. Students also master specific skills, such as the reading of globes, maps, graphs, and diagrams, and they learn to use the research tools and methods of historians.

In Grade 1, we help students understand the concept of "history" as it relates to themselves and to their families, as well as to our country, focusing on colonial America. Students in Grade 2 study individuals who have "made history" and learn the goals of government and democracy. Our curriculum for Grade 3 focuses on human rights, minorities, and social classes; students develop an appreciation for our democratic, pluralistic society as they study the American Constitution and American ideals.

Students in Grade 4 make a yearlong study of California history, including Native American populations, Spanish settlement, the Mexican and Gold rush periods, and statehood. In Grade 5, students focus on American history up to the Civil War-European settlement, colonial America, the American Revolution, westward expansion, industrialization, and slavery.