Curriculum

 Core Subjects

Bible

Daily Bible study, prayer time, and weekly chapels are designed to help students develop a Christian world view, a love for God, and a greater understanding of His attributes as God develops faith in them. The elementary school adopted the Deep Roots Bible Curriculum, a digital apologetics and worldview curriculum, that equips students to integrate the Bible into their daily lives so they make choices that are honoring to God. “Character traits, case studies and discussions will work toward this aim, training students to see that behavior is not an external issue of trying harder, but a heart issue motivated out of gratitude toward God.” Students live out the love of God through school-wide and grade-level service opportunities.  

Language Arts

The 2020 Savvas MyView Literacy curriculum is a balanced literacy program, taught in six week units that focus on an essential question and teach critical thinking as students interact with authentic literary and informational texts through a series of reading and writing workshops that enable students to read, write, explain ideas, and listen to other viewpoints to integrate 21st century competencies, including social-emotional learning. Handwriting, phonics and spelling skills are incorporated into the core curriculum. Each unit culminates in a student-driven inquiry project that creates opportunity for students to reflect on what they’ve learned from the unit’s texts, conduct research, and work collaboratively to create a final project in written, digital, or spoken format.

Math

Grades K-5 use Math in Focus, a Singapore Math program that focuses on applying number sense, proportional thinking, and algebraic reasoning to non-routine real world problem-solving. “An emphasis on metacognition, hands-on problem solving, and a powerful concrete-pictorial-abstract approach allows students to gain deeper conceptual understanding through hands-on manipulates, diagrams and models, and abstract symbols.” This conceptual approach to mathematics is balanced by a variety of activities designed to enhance students’ fluency with mathematical computation.

Science

Science uses our God-given ability to reason and understand the world around us. Each grade level teaches 9-13 units based on the digital Generation Genius curriculum, which includes fun and educational videos paired with hands-on experiments, reading material, discussion questions, activities, and quizzes. The videos are filmed in Hollywood, produced in partnership with the National Science Teaching Association, and cover 100% of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for grades K-5. These units build observation of natural phenomena and experiments to develop science exploration skills, in conjunction with non-fiction text. Fields trips at every grade level, including the Alamitos Water Recharge Facility, DeAnza Planetarium, the Youth Science Institute, Filoli Gardens, Chabot Space Center, Monterey Bay Aquarium, San Francisco Exploratorium, Oakland Zoo, Lawrence Hall of Science, and Mission Springs Science Camp complement scientific learning.

Social Studies

Social studies introduces children to their world from the past to the present. Key components are civic, historical, and geographic literacy. Civics starts with the child as a citizen of the school, and then develops an understanding of the rights and responsibilities of all citizens to the community, their country, and the world at large. It also teaches children the purpose and function of rules and imparts a sense of our identity as a nation of immigrants living in a unique multicultural society. Historical literacy involves knowledge of important events and people. Geographic literacy teaches an understanding of place, location, direction, distance, relative size, shape, and identifying features in the environment.

Kindergarten through fifth grade students use the Houghton Mifflin Into Social Studies curricula, which uses vibrant magazines and hands-on activities that combine nonfiction and primary source content with literacy goals. The fourth grade uses TCI's Social Studies literacy goals. The fourth grade uses TCI's Social Studies "Alive! California's Promise", which combines inquire projects, hands-on lessons and short investigation to engage students in learning.