Reading

Students use the most current version of Houghton Mifflin’s Journeys reading program. Throughout this curriculum students read a wide range of fiction, nonfiction, classic, and contemporary works, to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world. The Journeys curriculum enables students to meet the Learning Outcome for Reading, by deeply exploring the four key areas of reading: print concepts, phonological awareness, phonics, and fluency. The Journeys curriculum encompasses a plethora of digital resources.

Science & Social Studies

The Studies Weekly curriculum is used for science and social studies. This curriculum is designed to encourage inquiry by analyzing and evaluating evidence, communicating conclusions, and taking action. In Kindergarten, the Social Studies topics include: Civics, Geography, Economics, and History. Science topics include: Physical Science, Life Science, and Earth Science. A key component of both our Social Studies and Science lessons, include the incorporation of interactive notebooks. This allows students to document their experiences and knowledge with each topic. Go Noodle is our favorite resource for brain breaks. Go Noodle allows students to get up and moving or get them calm and focused all while fitting seamlessly into our social studies and science content.

Math

Saxon Math by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is the current curriculum utilized to master mathematics and build upon knowledge. The Saxon Math curriculum ensures sustained achievement throughout incremental instruction. Students are exposed to concepts in every math strand which are woven together and connected throughout the year. Skills and concepts are reinforced throughout the year, helping students build a strong foundation of understanding. With engaging manipulatives, and hands-on learning tools, students develop and demonstrate understanding in the areas of geometric basics, number sense, number and operations, measurement, and data. High academic achievers in Math benefit from Prodigy Math, which is a curriculum-aligned math platform that automatically differentiates games and mini-lessons to accommodate each students’ learning needs.

Religion

The K-1 level of the Pflaum Gospel Weeklies called Promise are utilized. It is a liturgy-based approach to teaching Religion. Every Promise lesson is built upon a theme which comes from the upcoming Sunday Gospel. Each Promise lesson prepares the children to hear the Gospel message and help them to understand how the Gospel relates to their lives. To expand the content of the Promise lessons, students complete a series of activities in their What the Church Believes and Teaches handbook and listen to Bible stories related to each lesson. Gospelweeklies.com provides information that enhances the presentation of the Pflaum Gospel weeklies in the classroom.

The students participate in a program called The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. The students are involved in many hands-on learning experiences in a prayerful setting. The students learn about the Church, the Liturgical Seasons, the Sacraments, the Bible, and spend their time in the Atrium. Our students attend Mass once a week and on Holy days of Obligation. The Rosary is prayed during the months of October and May. We attend the Stations of the Cross during the Lenten season. Our students look forward to Fr. Andrew, our Pastor, and Sr. Agnes visiting our classroom every week.

Resources

• Student eBooks which allows students to respond to prompts in a variety of ways (short-answer and spoken response, drag-and-drop, multiple choice and drawing).
• hmhfyi.com in which students explore high-interest informational texts and multimedia about the topics they study.
• Interactive whiteboard lessons
• IXL skills practice
• YouTube for virtual field trips
• Seesaw
• Vooks
• Boom cards
• Science and social studies resources include: Go Noodle, Youtube
• Math resources include: Prodigy Math, IXL
• Religion resources include: GROW newsletter and blog for weekly reflections, Calendar of Saints and Feasts, Seasonal activities, Catholic resources
• Family resources which provides a weekly guide for parents in both English and Spanish.