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Athletics & Activities

Kindergarten

Language Arts

Language Arts is composed of several interrelated areas: reading, writing, spelling, listening, and speaking. At the elementary level, students are encouraged to learn to communicate clearly through development in these four areas:

Reading

SRA/Open Court Reading, a phonics-based program developing reading fluency while leading to greater comprehension and enjoyment of reading.

Recognize and name all of the uppercase and lowercase letters
Recognize and say the common sound of all 26 letters and write a letter that goes with a spoken sound
Produce rhyming words and recognize pairs of rhyming words
Use their knowledge of letter sounds to figure out simple, regularly spelled, single-syllable words
Read high-frequency words that are recognized by “sight”
Begin to track print when listening to a familiar text being read or when rereading their own writing
Read simple texts containing familiar letter-sound correspondences and high-frequency words
Retell a story in their own words or reenact it, getting the events in the correct sequence
Respond to simple questions about a book’s content
Make predictions based on illustrations or portions of stories

Writing

Write daily
Use their knowledge of sounds and letters to write phonetically, representing consonant sounds with single letters in the correct sequence
Leave spaces between words they have written
Use beginning capitalization and end marks
Independently create text with words
Attempt to write text that is related to a picture
Recognize and read their own writing

Listening

Listen attentively by facing speaker and making eye contact
Follow oral directions
Listen to and follow a story read orally
Participate in discussions around a common topic

Speaking

Recognize and say the common sound of most letters
Retell a story in their own words orally or reenact it, getting the events in the correct sequence
Respond orally to simple questions about a book’s content
Participate in discussions around a common topic

Mathematics

Houghton Mifflin explores more of the spectrum of mathematical ideas through a deeper understanding of key mathematical concepts and in-depth study of all the content strands of mathematics.
Lesson by lesson students explore and build their understanding of what numbers are an how to make them. Learning centers, games, group participation, and other active learning opportunities support the core instruction. Early reading skills and strategies are integrated with math skills to build print awareness.
Content strands include:

Classification, positions, patterns
Getting started with numbers
Geometry, fractions and probability
Numbers through 12
Time and money
Measurement
Addition and subtraction
Greater numbers

Religion

Sadlier: We Believe Series, God Made the World, teaches love, compassion, trust, fairness, cooperation and reverence for the human family and all of life. Lessons are rooted in Scripture. The activities involve the children and their families in Catechesis, prayer, and living their faith. The Family Life program focuses on the child in a family, family differences, families as part of a community, and how people can help and support each other. Promise Weekly leaflets help develop the Gospel stories of each week’s liturgy.

Social Science

The purpose of science is to provide students with balanced, relevant, hands-on opportunities and experiences to better understand science and to promote scientific literacy. (Life, Earth, Physical, and Health)
Kindergarten Science topics include:

Life – Seeds to Plants
Earth – Ecology – Save the Earth
Physical – Water Explorations, Magnets
Health – Senses
Planetarium – Intro to Sky Motion

The purpose of Social Studies is to develop an awareness of the world around us.
Kindergarten Social Studies units include:

School
Decision-making
Families and responsibilities
Respect for culture, customs, & symbols of our country
Communities
Symbols on a map

Enrichments

• Physical Education
Students learn, develop, and apply skills needed for participation in personal fitness and lifetime activities that contribute to a healthy lifestyle.

• Visual Arts
Students grow creatively, intellectually, and aesthetically through the application of media
techniques and processes as well as knowledge of art
elements and principles of design.

• Music
Students develop an understanding of the relationship of music to other disciplines and cultures through experiencing variations in rhythms, music styles, melodies, and performances.

• Library
Library lessons for PreK and Kindergarten often complement the topics and themes being taught in their classroom. These students practice listening skills and story comprehension while learning about a variety of literature.

General Information

Technology
The goal of technology education is to provide students with the opportunity for technological literacy starting with the elementary curriculum.
Our emphasis with students is the application of technology across all grade levels and curricular areas as well as the development of problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

Reporting to Parents
Classroom progress is reported through quarterly report cards and mid-quarter progress reports. Communications, such as “Week In A Peek” are also utilized.

Testing
Our achievement-testing program assesses the strengths/needs of our instructional programs and measures the achievement of individual students. Tests utilized annually by all schools of the Diocese of Lake Charles include Stanford Achievement Test for grades K - 8, Explore/ACT Test for 8th graders only. Otis Lennon School Ability Test is administered in odd numbered years.

Homework
Homework at the elementary level begins in an informal fashion but becomes more formal and requires more time and effort as the child progresses through each grade.
Parents are expected to be sufficiently interested in their child’s education to commit the time and energy needed to monitor/supervise the child’s home study and thereby insure that he/she makes a reasonable effort to complete homework assignments.

Promotion
Students must meet the following criteria:
~ Demonstrate competency in all areas of the
Stanford Achievement Test (SAT)
~ Attend the required number of instructional days
~ Attain adequate skills needed as determined by the
teacher and administration