Lower School Academic Highlights

The pre-kindergarten program instills a love of learning by nurturing and encouraging the development of the whole child. The program supports the development of the child spiritually through daily devotions, prayer, and chapel. It promotes intellectual growth by exposing students to a language-rich environment, problem-solving opportunities, and hands-on activities. Students engage in intentional play-based learning stations around the classroom daily. Social and emotional growth is encouraged with opportunities to learn through role-playing and classroom interaction. Physical growth is strengthened as students experience fine and gross motor activities in the classroom, on the playground, and through direct instruction during physical education enrichment. 

Pre-kindergarten students are excited to learn foundational language arts skills as they are introduced weekly to the Letterland characters and the Heggerty phonemic awareness curriculum. Letterland offers a comprehensive curriculum that integrates knowledge across various subject areas, focusing on oral language, phonological/phonemic awareness, print awareness and alphabetic knowledge. Fine motor skills are further developed through the Handwriting Without Tears program. The pre-kindergarten program content and themes incorporate math, science, social studies, health and safety, art, music and movement activities that are interactive and age-appropriate for our youngest students.

Highlights in pre-kindergarten include Apple Day, Teddy Bear Picnic and the Letterland Parade. The International Day continent studied throughout the year is Australia.

St. David’s kindergarten provides children with a strong foundation for future success while creating a secure, nurturing environment. Kindergarten students experience a developmentally appropriate curriculum, integrating different learning styles through academic and hands-on activities as well as utilizing various technology resources. 

The kindergarten Language Arts program is phonics-based, integrated with reading, writing, and literature. Students strengthen phonemic awareness through the Heggerty curriculum and enjoy meeting letter characters and building words through the Letterland program. Kindergarteners develop math skills using manipulative materials, games, and hands-on activities with the Math in Focus curriculum. Science and social studies concepts are taught through thematic units that are relevant, engaging, and fun. Students join friends and teachers from other classes, building community and friendships through exploration during the weekly Super Science activities. St. David's kindergarten students can be found singing, dancing, creating, building, and learning together.

Highlights of kindergarten include Wonka Day, Super Science Fridays and buddy activities with our fourth-grade students. The International Day continent studied throughout the year is Asia.

In first grade at St. David’s School, we encourage continued curiosity and wonder about God’s world by providing an environment that fosters a love of learning. Hands-on learning combined with more formal instruction taps into the increased focus and attention span of this age group and enhances their collaboration and engagement.

Letterland and Heggerty curricula continue through first-grade with activities that engage students to extend their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences and strategies they need to be successful readers. This, combined with our Voyages in Writing curriculum, helps students form effective reading habits and further understanding of the connection between reading and written expression. The first-grade Math in Focus curriculum focuses on problem-solving skills using a continuum of concrete, pictorial and abstract, allowing students to better understand how numbers relate as they articulate answers. 

In science, first graders learn to observe, compare, classify, gather data, measure, make predictions, hypothesize, and infer outcomes using a hands-on approach with various resources to enhance knowledge in the areas of plants, animals, weather, force and motion. The social studies curriculum helps students become more responsible by learning to be good global citizens. The curriculum also gives students an opportunity to explore their community, town, state, and country. They learn about local, state, and national government and geography through map and globe skills. 

Highlights of first grade include the community Gingerbread House creation, a poetry presentation,  and the Mother’s Day Tea. The International Day continent studied throughout the year is Europe.

Second grade at St. David’s is characterized by providing opportunities that encourage increased student independence and the continued development of communication skills. Students are guided to increasingly connect learning from the various curricula and thoughtfully navigate interpersonal relationships during collaborative experiences.

Second grade students continue to refine the accuracy and fluency of their oral reading with appropriate intonation and expression. Reading comprehension strategy instruction accelerates in second grade as students learn to take greater responsibility for monitoring their understanding of texts. Writing instruction with the Voyages in Writing curriculum is focused on the organization of thoughts, planning, drafting, and editing to produce a written product that clearly communicates a main idea. Second grade mathematics builds upon fundamental concepts learned in first grade and continues to use the concrete, pictorial, and abstract continuum in the Math in Focus curriculum to introduce and practice concepts. Through a spiraling approach, students develop a deeper understanding of numbers and operations with language that helps them articulate an understanding of connections. The use of manipulatives continues to be an integral part of the second-grade curriculum, as students connect abstract concepts of place value, regrouping in both addition and subtraction, and comparative values of fractions to concrete understanding. 

Through individual and cooperative learning assignments, students develop essential skills in life science, Earth science, and physical science. Some units explored include habitats, the human body, matter, and the solar system. Students develop a broader sense of citizenship within a community and examine basic economic principles. In addition to exploring the basic principles of government, second grade students extend their understanding of historical references and learn to differentiate between events that took place long ago and more recently.

Highlights of second grade include the Winter Tea, Charlotte’s Web County Fair and field trips to Blue Jay Point and the North Carolina Planetarium. The International Day continent studied throughout the year is South America.

Third grade at St. David’s inspires learners to reach their full potential by facilitating independence and building a solid foundation of academic skills, learning strategies and appropriate behaviors. Students gain confidence in their academic abilities while building interpersonal skills through cooperative tasks.

Throughout this transition year, reading focus shifts from learning to read to reading to learn. Using a variety of genres, students master strategies to enhance fluency, comprehension, and analysis through Engaged Learning and Letterland curricula. The fundamentals of grammar, mechanics, and sentence structure are further honed and applied through reading responses to novel studies and written products using the Voyages in Writing curriculum. Math in Focus curriculum instructs and emphasizes the concrete, pictorial and abstract continuum, leading to a clear understanding of concepts in the areas of numeration, operation and computations, data, probability, geometry, measurement, decimals, fractions, and spatial sense. Multiplication and division are concepts that greatly benefit from our emphasis on math-fact memorization through active engagement.

Third grade scientists develop a love of science by exploring topics in Earth and life science through hands-on experiences. Some units include animal classification, extreme weather, plants, life cycles, forces, and motion. Students work cooperatively using the scientific method to investigate the natural world. A central focus of the social studies curriculum is citizenship and government, with an emphasis on colonial America and the colonists' quest for independence. Students study the states and capitals, major landmarks, and the branches of national government. Students showcase their learning on Presidents’ Night as they research a president, draft a speech, and personify their given president in a dramatic presentation.

Highlights of third grade include Presidents’ Night and field trips to Old Salem and the North Carolina Zoo. The International Day continent studied throughout the year is North America.

Fourth grade is the capstone of the Lower School experience at St. David’s School. The curricular expectations reflect the changing nature of the students’ learning style. Faith, virtue and knowledge further develop through leadership roles and relationships.

The language arts curriculum emphasizes the continued development and proficiency in the basic building blocks of reading and writing. Students decode more challenging words, and are exposed to more literacy genres to refine reading comprehension, analysis, critical thinking and listening skills. These competencies are taught utilizing novel studies, oral reading tasks, and current non-fiction resources for a full literature experience, and Orton-Gillingham methodology for detailed word study. Utilizing the Voyages in Writing curriculum, students produce various types of products such as essays, poetry, responses to literature, and narrative composition. Students are presented with new vocabulary through the context of literature.

In fourth grade, the Math in Focus curriculum challenges students to problem-solve and think critically through more complex math problems. Through the continued progression of concrete, pictorial and abstract mathematical representation, students discern, analyze and articulate an understanding of mathematical processes. Students develop number sense and fluency with algebraic expressions, fractions, decimals, and geometry. Math-fact fluency is learned through active engagement and healthy competition.

Fourth grade science focuses on world-wide ecosystems, the human body, rocks and minerals, and adaptations of living things. Students investigate energy, vibrations, sound, and circuits through hands-on lab opportunities. Using the scientific method, students learn to record their observations, summarize their discoveries in a culminating science research project.

Our social studies program focuses on North Carolina’s past, present, and future. Emphasis is placed on geography, economics, and cultural events, which have shaped the state’s history. The use of primary sources, map skills, technology and integration with the literacy and science curricula appeal to the students’ understanding of current and past events. Field trips within the state deliver a hands-on approach to learning North Carolina history.

Highlights of fourth grade include participation in the weekly chapel services, Wax Museum, buddy activities with kindergarteners, and exploring North Carolina with two signature field trips, one by train to the Science Museum in Charlotte and one to the Cape Lookout Lighthouse and surrounding islands. The International Day continent studied through the year is Africa.