Curriculum

The curriculum provided to pre-school through eighth grade is one of continuity and challenge-- recognizing the individual needs and gifts of each student. We pledge to motivate each student toward developing their capabilities to the fullest potential. We strive to instill a passion for knowledge and a quest for excellence.

Pre-Kindergarten

Our Pre-Kindergarten program fosters joy in discovery and learning in a Catholic environment that nurtures the whole child in the areas of spiritual, social/emotional, physical, cognitive, and language development. The St. Thomas More Cathedral School Pre-Kindergarten curriculum is aligned with Virginia’s Foundation Blocks for Early Learning: Comprehensive Standards for Four-Year-Olds.

Religion

• The children come to know God as the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit as they discover God revealed in His Word, the Bible.  They also encounter God in many signs and symbols of the Catholic Church
• The children experience God’s great love for them though daily interactions with their teachers who also help nurture the children’s relationship with Jesus through prayer.
• The children learn to serve God through respecting and caring for God’s creatures and the environment

Literacy

• Oral Expression – The children gain language and vocabulary skills by having multiple and frequent opportunities to talk as well as, listen to adults and peers.  These opportunities occur daily and routinely as the children begin to read and write
• Vocabulary – The children are exposed to a wide variety of experiences to build vocabulary, developing an understanding of words and word meanings.  Opportunities to use newly acquired vocabulary supports the child’s ability to effectively express new information, concepts, and ideas, and to relate personal experiences.
• Phonological Awareness – The children learn to manipulate various units of sound in words through rhyming, alliteration (common initial sounds), blending and segmentation.  Curriculum material from Words Their Way: Letter and Picture Sorts for Emergent Spellers supports the children in these essential early literacy skills along with letter knowledge and letter/sound associations.
• Letter Knowledge and Early Word Recognition – The children acquire a basic knowledge of the alphabetic principle: letter recognition and an understanding of the functions of letters and their connection to sounds.  The children also read simple, familiar high-frequency words including their names.
• Print and Book Awareness – The children gain an understanding of the print concepts that print conveys meaning, pictures are representations of print, and there is a correlation between spoken and written words.  The children routinely and consistently experiment with exploring books.
• Written Expression – The children copy or write letters using the curriculum developed for Pre-K by Handwriting Without Tears.  The curriculum focuses on developing proper pencil grip and the formation of upper case letters and numbers.

Math

• Number and Number Sense – The children learn to count with understanding and use numbers to tell how many, describe order, and compare.
• Computation – The children learn how to recognize and describe changes in
•  groups/sets/collections
• Measurement – The children identify and compare the attributes of length, capacity, weight, time, and temperature.
• Geometry – The children learn how to describe simple geometric shapes (circle, triangle, rectangle, and square) and indicate their position in relation to other objects.
• Data Collection and Statistics – The children participate in the data gathering process in order to answer questions of interest.
• Patterns and Relationships – The children identify simple patterns of concrete objects and use them to recognize relation ships.

Science

• Scientific Investigation, Reasoning, and Life Processes – The children make observations, separate objects into groups based on similar attributes, compare lengths and mass, and develop questions based upon observations using the five senses.
• Force, Motion, and Energy – The children describe and categorize properties of materials using magnets.
• Matter – The children develop language to describe an object’s position, movement and physical properties.  The children will also describe properties of water and its movement.
• Life Processes – The children compare the growth of a person to the growth of a plant and an animal to be able to describe basic life processes and basic needs of each.
• Earth Patterns, Cycles, and Change – The children identify simple patterns in their lives and things that change over time.
• Resources – The children practice reusing, recycling and conserving energy on a daily basis.

History and Social Science

• History – The children identify ways in which people are alike and different.  They develop an awareness of change over time, the difference between past and present.
• Geography – The children develop an increased awareness of the physical relationship between and among people and places and use words to indicate relative location of objects and people using direction words, comparison words and attribute words.
• Economics – The children develop an increased awareness of the kinds of work people do and the variety of tools people use for their jobs.  The children identify that people have wants and make choices
• Civics – The children participate as active members/citizens of a classroom community.

Pre-Kindergarten students also attend classes conducted by specialists in the following curriculum areas:

• Art
• Computer
• Library
• Music
• P.E.
• Spanish

Each class meets for 30 minutes once a week.

Kindergarten

Religion:  Kindergarten attends Friday Mass with their prayer partners.  Students learn the following prayers during the year: Children’s Morning Offering, Grace Before Meals, Grace After Meals, Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, and the Guardian Angel. Students are introduced to the rosary and the Mysteries of the rosary.  Our religion text has a weekly theme which helps the children see the religious dimension of what they do and see in life every day as an integrated whole.  These lessons will include experiences leading to a faith message from the Bible, creative activities to understand it better, psalm responses and prayer experiences.

Language Arts - Reading:  Weekly story selections teach comprehension and listening strategies such as predicting, summarizing, text structure, cause and effect, drawing conclusions, main idea, compare and contrast, story sequence, fact and opinion, vocabulary, aspects of word study and phonics including letter-sound relationships and word identification strategies, journal writing, oral language skills such as speaking, listening, presenting information and small group discussions. Students are taught in small reading groups as well as whole class lessons.  We use the Daily 5 reading format. The Daily Five is a way of structuring the reading block so every student is independently engaged in meaningful literacy tasks. These research based tasks are ones that will have the biggest impact on student reading and writing achievement, as well as help foster children who love to read and write. Students receive explicit whole group instruction and then are given independent practice time to read and write independently while I provide focused, intense instruction to individuals and small groups of students.

When it is up and running smoothly, students will be engaged in the Daily Five, which are comprised of:

• Read to Self
• Work on Writing
• Read to Someone
• Listen to Reading
• Word Work

There are very specific behavior expectations that go with each Daily 5 component.  We will spend our first weeks working intensely on building our reading and writing stamina, learning the behaviors of the Daily 5 and fostering our classroom community.  I will also spend time learning about your child’s strengths and greatest needs as a reader in order to best plan for each student’s instruction.

Writing: Each child will complete two writing journals during the year which will be shared with you at conference times.  “Kids writing” is used in kindergarten which means we encourage children to write the sounds they hear when spelling out words.

Word Study: Word study is a developmental reading, vocabulary and writing (spelling) program, which includes the five stages of spelling development and how these stages correspond with reading and writing.  Students are assessed for their word knowledge and will be placed in differentiated word study groups.  Word study develops early literacy components such as phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, letter-sound relationships, phonics, word patterns and vocabulary knowledge.

Math: Kindergarten uses the Everyday Mathematics program in order to teach a broad range of mathematics topics.  Developed by the University of Chicago School Mathematics Program, the program is based on research about how children learn and develop mathematical power.  As a result, it provides children with the broad mathematical background they need in the 21^st century.  In so doing, the Everyday Mathematics program fosters number sense through a problem-solving approach and age-appropriate activities based on everyday situations.  Taking advantage of children’s capabilities and motivation to learn, the program builds upon student’s knowledge by presenting key mathematical ideas over time in slightly different ways.  Lastly, Everyday Math gives opportunities to connect what the students learn in the classroom to everyday activities they do at home.

Social Studies: During the year students will recognize and discuss current events materials and their application to the course of studies with the following virtues: prayer, thankfulness, obedience, sense of wonder and reverence in God’s creation, praise of God, respect, courtesy and helpfulness.  Students will develop an appreciation for themselves as a unique individual by learning to identify and describe their feelings as well as recognize that others have likes and dislikes.  Children will also learn to respect different cultures similarities and differences and develop positive and kind attitudes towards the community.  Students will look at the family structure to identify basic needs of families (love, support, spiritual, food, clothes, employment, and education) as well as understand various family structures, rules, and the importance of communication.  Kindergarten students begin to understand economic tendencies such as:  the importance of work in society, differences between “wants” and “needs,” and the exchange of money for goods.  Children also realize that being a good citizen involves important actions; learn the Pledge of Allegiance; identify traditional patriotic symbols associated with America; understanding the concept of leadership; understand the concept of freedom of religion; learn their address and phone number; use simple maps and charts; and identify and describe certain people and events honored in our history.

Science: During the year students will explore, experience, and investigate the senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell.  Children will daily describe and chart daily weather conditions, relating weather trends with seasonal changes.  Kindergarten students will observe that all matter has properties, locations, and movements that can be described.  They will also explore the concept of sink and float, learn about animal life cycles and the basic needs of all living things, and explore the properties of matter to include: colors, textures, size, shape, position in space, solids, liquids, and gases.  Various experiments will be conducted throughout the year to acquire the idea of scientific exploration and investigation.

Handwriting:  We follow the Handwriting Without Tears program at St. Thomas More Cathedral School. Children usually start writing with capital letters (uppercase) because capital letters are developmentally easier.  We will use CAPITAL case to teach important habits such as starting at the top, writing from left to right, and orienting letters correctly.  Once children are comfortable with capital letters they are taught lowercase.   

Grades 1-8

Primary Grades 1-2, Intermediate Grades 3-5, and Middle School Grades 6-8 are provided with a full curriculum as indicated below:

• Religion
• Language Arts (Reading, Writing, Grammar) 
• Science 
• Social Studies 
• Mathematics
• Pre-Algebra or Algebra (Grade 8) 
• Spanish 
  • once a week (Grades K-5)
  • twice every week (Grades 6) 
  • three times a week (Grades 7-8) 
• Music (Grades K-5)
• Art 
• Computer (Lab and Classroom) 
• Library
• Physical Education

- with optional Band and Choir (The choir program is available in 3rd grade and the band is available in 4th grade.)