Curriculum
Lower School: K - 5th Grades
Community and Student-Centered Education
Writing/English/Language Arts/Reading (WELAR)
We believe that students become better readers when they are exposed to authentic literature. Our students use novels and tradebooks to explore multiple genres, good reading/writing habits, and a love of literacy through Lucy Calkins' Reading and Writing Workshops.
We utilize Orton-Gillingham to assist all students with word attack and decoding skills to become more fluent readers and we monitor their literacy benchmarks with Fountas and Pinnell reading assessments,
Math
At SKTCS our students learn using the Go! Math Program. Go! Math is a K-8 comprehensive approach that supports teachers in differentiating instruction for students from remediation to enrichment. Go! Math employs a 5E instructional model: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate and provides students with multiple opportunities to "get it right."
Social Studies
Our place-based approach to Social Studies begins with the Georgia Standards of Excellence for each grade level. Teachers use the standards to find local opportunities for students to go out and experience history, economics, government, culture and geography.
Science
Our constructivist (project-based) approach to science encourages students ask questions, form hypotheses, and conduct experiments to confirm or revise their original hypotheses. Science is often combined with Social Studies for an interdisciplinary adventure into learning!
Assessments
We use both formative (in-process) and summative (end-of-unit) assessments to ensure that our students are obtaining and retaining information.
For example, during the course of a year our students will complete portfolio entries, writing pieces, projects, presentations, art exhibits, science experiments, as well as traditional paper and pencil tests.
SKTCS students take MAP tests and Fountas and Pinnell reading assessments to track independent reading growth each trimester as well as end-of-grade GMAS testing starting in 3rd Grade.
