Lower School

Pre-K

St. John’s acknowledges young children as unique individuals and guides them to challenge and extend themselves within a safe, nurturing, Christian environment. Each classroom is designed to capitalize on the natural intellectual curiosity of children by providing opportunities to develop and strengthen communication skills, perceptual abilities, fine and gross motor skills, creative expression, the desire to read and write, and the use and understanding of numerals. The pre-kindergarten curriculum also focuses on furthering the development of social skills and autonomy through experiences and activities built around thematic units. A learning center approach encourages the children to learn through direct interaction with their environment. Our outdoor environment extends and enriches classroom experiences.

Kindergarten through Fifth Grade
Beginning in kindergarten, our lower school classes follow an age-appropriate curriculum that includes language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and enrichments.

Our language arts curriculum provides children with a wide range of experiences, stimulating them to explore and enjoy the world of literacy. The program leverages children’s natural storytelling abilities by introducing them to story structure and helping them appreciate how pictures and words tell stories. As students progress through the curriculum, they strengthen phonics and sound/letter relationships and explore many types of writing such as creative, persuasive, informational, and poetic.

Mathematics teachers use everyday situations and a problem-solving, learn-by-doing approach to instruct students. Classroom routines in kindergarten through third grade integrate mathematics into students’ daily lives using concrete objects to represent abstract ideas. In third grade, children move from concrete objects to pencil-and-paper activities and then to mental math exercises. At each grade level we expect students to master certain concepts and skills. Currently, in grades four and five we expect students to have mastered basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts.

Our social studies program gives the students insight into their communities and helps them make connections to the larger world. A variety of lesson formats encourages the students to explore the geographic, social, and economic aspects of their world. Literature, biographies, primary sources, and lessons about real families introduce young learners to people and events in other times and places. This multi-faceted program integrates an appreciation of cultural pluralism and an exposure to multiple perspectives as it teaches history and geography.

St. John’s students experience science through exposure to concrete examples of scientific concepts using hands-on activities relevant to daily life. The program focuses on the “big ideas,” or common themes, of science systems, models, constancy and change, and scale. Students develop process skills as they actively investigate concepts and evaluate results. They develop critical thinking and scientific reasoning skills as they respond to thought-provoking discussion questions. In 2007-2008, fourth graders actively participated in the Trinity River Project, a conservation program sponsored by the Texas Wildlife Association.

We believe a well-rounded education requires more than strong roots in fundamental skill areas. We also provide students the opportunity to develop their own identities and avenues of self-expression through a comprehensive enrichment program. Children experience several enrichment classes each week, including foreign language, P.E., music, art, and library. The enrichment teacher specialists often incorporate units related to classroom themes into their curriculum.