Curriculum Guide

Intermediate

Grades 3-5

Religion

The curriculum is geared toward developing a student’s understanding of God’s attributes, recognition of sin and forgiveness, and learning how to treat others in a Christlike manner. The curriculum includes daily instruction, weekly chapel, memorization of God’s Word, and community service.

Grade 3

V Old Testament : Creation – The Life of John the Baptist

V New Testament : The Birth of Jesus – The Life of Paul

Grade 4-6

A two-year Cycle Covering:

V Old Testament : Creation – Exodus

V New Testament : The Life of Jesus – The Life of Paul

Mathematics

Goals

V Learn to value mathematics

V Become confident in one’s own ability

V Become a mathematical problem solver

V Learn to communicate mathematically

V Learn to reason mathematically

Content Areas

V Addition and Subtraction of Whole Numbers, Decimals, and Fractions

V Place Value: Whole and Decimal

V Time and Money

V Multiplication and Division of Whole Numbers, Decimals, and Fractions

V Data and Graphs

V Metric Measurement

V Geometry

V Ratio and Percent

V Probability

V Perimeter, Area, and Volume

English

Reading, writing, listening, speaking, thinking, and language are taught as an integrated study, not in isolation. Effective writing and thinking processes and techniques are taught. Writing is taught as a step-by-step process so that students will apply critical thinking skills to their work and use listening, speaking, and grammar skills in a meaningful context. Students will:

V Identify nouns, verbs, and adjectives

V Use sentence structure in their writing

V Identify use of pronouns

V Identify adverbs and prepositions

V Use capitalization and punctuation

V Learn and use the basic steps of the Writing Process

Grade 3 Phonics

Phonics help students see a connection between reading, spelling, and writing. It also helps develop decoding and encoding skills. Content areas are:

V Initial, medial, and final consonants

V Hard and soft consonant sounds

V Short and long vowel sounds and spellings

V Consonant digraphs

V Contractions, plurals, inflected endings, comparatives, and suffixes

V Vowel pairs, vowel digraphs, and diphthongs

V Prefixed, base words, suffices

V Synonyms, antonyms, homonyms

V Use of a dictionary

Literature

Literature is the heart of the Reading program. Children should read and write every day. In order for literature to become a vital part of their lives, it must be more than a subject in school. It becomes a daily activity that holds the promise of continual enjoyment. Guiding principles are:

V Reading is the process of constructing meaning from written text through the interaction of reader’s skills and knowledge, the text, and the reading situation.

V Reading requires us to know how to apply decoding and comprehension skills, when and why to apply them, and how to do so independently.

V Reading is a critical tool for discovering, clarifying, and evaluation ideas.

Spelling

The teaching of spelling and vocabulary affects a student’s writing efficiency, reading accuracy and efficiency, success in subsequent reading instruction, and reading comprehension. Students will:

V Use a thesaurus, encyclopedia, dictionary

V Alphabetize words

V Identify proper nouns, homophones, antonyms, synonyms, and compound words according to spelling

V Identify suffixes and prefixes

V Divide words into syllables

V Recognize entry words as base words

V Recognize base words and endings

V Identify abbreviations

V Recognize words needing capital letters

V Identify contractions

V Distinguish between singular and plural possessive nouns

V Recognize different pronunciations

Science

Teaching science from a Christian perspective involves guiding all lessons on the foundation of God’s Word. We believe the best science education for students is one that gradually introduces them to the knowledge, methods, skills, and attitudes of scientists while simultaneously recognizing and respecting the educational, developmental, and spiritual needs of all students.

Life Science

V Life Cycles

V Roles of Living Things

V Insects

V Plants

V Birds

V Fish

V Population and Ecosystems

Physical Science

V Forms of Energy

V Properties of Matter

V Magnetism and Electricity

V Energy, Work, and Machines

V Light and Sound

Earth Science

V Sun, Moon, and Earth

V Earth’s Land Resources

V Solar System

Social Studies

Five themes of geography are used to make students more geographically literate. They are:

V Location

1. Absolute (Maps, Longitude, Latitude)

2. Relative (Relation to surroundings)

V Place

1. Physical Characteristics (Climate, Soil, Vegetation)

2. Human Characteristics (Values, Ideas, Architecture)

V Human-Environment Interactions: Ways humans are affected by their physical environment

V Movement: Flow of people, goods, and ideas

V Regions: areas that can be defined on the basis of unifying characteristics

1. Physical

2. Human (Cultural, Social, Political)

Grade 3: United States Communities

Grades 4 & 5: A two-year cycle of World and United States History and Geography

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