DevotionsEach day starts with devotions. Songs of praise, the reading of God’s Word, and the sharing together of prayers and prayer requests set the tone for the rest of the school day. The format of this activity will vary from room to room, but in all our classes our days start with an awareness of the reality and presence of God.
Our Statement of Faith points out that we consider the Scriptures to be “our authority in all areas of life”. In that light it is apparent that knowledge of what the Bible says and means is pivotal to an educated mind. Although we teach the Bible as one subject in the curriculum, our intentions for this area go far beyond mere academic goals. Every teacher prays that the instruction in this field will lead students to a more comprehensive commitment of their lives to the service of Jesus Christ and to a greater readiness to let Scripture provide the model for their chosen lifestyles. Texts and teaching strategies vary from grade to grade and from year to year. We use many parts of the Bible curriculum developed by Christian Schools International, but we also use teacher-created units and some materials from other publishers.
The Language Arts program is the academic heart of our curriculum. Language is such a special gift from God that He has made it transcend all other aspects of our lives. (It is language that makes us able to listen to each other, to think clearly, to express our thoughts and feelings, to pray, to understand God’s Word, to respond to literature.) Reading, writing, listening and speaking are the skills that unlock other subjects for us and that make us capable of pursuing knowledge independently. For these reasons, in Language we use several different reading programs that will match the distinctly different needs of each age/grade level. Kindergarten is a year of preparation for reading. We work on the recognition of letters and their sounds, on simple vocabulary and classification, and on thinking skills. Ours is a more structured learning program than is often found at the kindergarten level today, but it helps develop both the study habits and the pre-reading skills that will be needed in grade one. It is in grade one that the main focus is made on developing reading skills. It is our “learn- to- read” year, and we expect all students to emerge from it with this ability. Some will of course be more fluent or have better comprehension than others, but our expectation is for all students to be readers and writers and this expectation is almost always met. Children are encouraged to spell on their own, but the phonetic emphasis in the program keeps pointing them toward the correct spelling patterns. Some of the stories emerging from these eager students are real treasures. The students especially enjoy their own creations when they get to typewrite on the computer. Subsequent grades extend and reinforce the basic skills already learned. The students use progressively challenging reading themes, with novels being the main reading materials, while a variety of methods are used to build skills in listening, reading and writing. Structural aspects of grammar are emphasized more at this stage. Throughout Grades Five and Eight, the A Beka Grammar series emphasizes the teaching of Reading Strategies and Writing Strategies. Reading is more than decoding; in seeking out meaning it is helpful to use strategies such as clarifying, predicting and summing-up, and these strategies are themselves teachable. Similarly, although writing is a creative process, deliberate strategies such as planning, elaboration, and revising will turn writing into effective communication. In Grades Seven & Eight, students use a variety of readers and novels. We seek to improve comprehension skills through writings of increasing complexity, to show students how to interpret and enjoy a variety of different literary forms, and to develop a love for reading as an independent activity There is also a considerable emphasis on formal grammar and vocabulary development, and a lot of writing both in the traditional written journal and with the computer.
This is the other half of “the basics” that people want to get back to. Certainly numeracy is as important as literacy for the technologies that our students will have to learn to be employable in the society of the future. Focusing as it does on the intricacy, the rationality, the connectedness and the symmetry of our universe, mathematics also reminds the thoughtful Christian of aspects of the mind of our Creator that we sometimes forget as we concentrate on His Love. Our approach to teaching math is fairly traditional. We run fairly structured classes, use textbooks and workbooks, encourage mastery of number facts, and assign drills and tests. We are not persuaded that a “child-centred” or “discovery” approach is the most efficient or effective pedagogy. At the same time, it is folly to teach math today exactly as we taught it twenty or more years ago. There are more effective tools and materials available now for our advantage. We use manipulatives wherever possible, spend quite some time on math games, and integrate the use of calculators and computers into our classrooms. The textbook series that we use is Math Quest by Addison Wesley Publishers. It has an excellent balance of basic skills, problem solving, games and practice. As it approaches the intermediate grades, it progressively introduces units on graphing, geometry, statistics, probability, and algebra. We supplement it from time to time with materials from other sources, as no one program can be the best at everything, but as a framework program, it meets our objectives admirably.
Science provides students with the occasion to further explore the world God has created and given us to understand and care for. Students are taught to look for the precision and design in the physical world that gives evidence of God’s power and wisdom. Focus is placed on discerning the interdependence of various parts of creation and the good stewardship of these parts.
We have a lab equipped with 30 Netbooks and clusters of computers in each individual classroom. We also have a Smart Board which is used as an effective tool for teaching a variety of subjects. Our school is committed to the goal of providing as effective a training in computer literacy as is available to students in other school systems. We want every student in the school, at every grade level, to be comfortable using computers and to view them as valuable learning tools. We prefer to use computers in each subject area rather than to teach them as a subject in themselves. We use word-processors as an extension of the writing process and supplement our reading instruction with programs that build comprehension skills or with interactive books. We use simulations or exploration games to enliven the study of history, geography, and the science. Keyboarding is a skill we start to teach in grade 3 and continue to practice in all grades until the student achieves the ability to type at 30 words per minute. Uses of the computers include creative writing, project presentations, mathematics assistance, social studies and history research, along with many other uses.
We believe strongly in the value of acquiring a second language and in the responsibility for all Canadians to learn French as our other national language. French is taught from kindergarten to grade eight. There, in the classroom environment, they sing, play games, and converse, building their communicative skills..
In the primary grades, science and the study of society are blended together in a program of Social and Environmental Studies. A variety of integrated thematic units by the Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools, work outwards from family to community to country to world, dealing with animals and energy and mapping skills and water and much more. It is one of the joys of teaching in a Christian school that we can teach these units from a Christian perspective. The world we open up to the children includes the Creator and a Provider. Beginning in grade three, science finds its own niche in our curriculum, and in social studies we begin to focus more on our past and on our surroundings. A study of pioneer lifestyles boosts historical consciousness, while geographical interests are geared towards developing ecological concepts and responsibility. Grades five and six explore Canadian geography and early Canadian history one year, and the history and places of the “old world” in the other. The senior grades focus more on geographical themes such as biomes, or living environments, but they also investigate other places and continents in our world. In history , Canadian and world events of the past two centuries are centre stage in the intermediate grades along with a class trip to Ottawa, our nation’s capital, to “experience” the history we have read about in the classroom.
Art enables children to recognize and explore special facets of creation such as line, colour, shape, form, space and value. It also encourages them to discover and develop their own creative talents. Students are instructed weekly in a fine-arts program by a certified art teacher.
For many students this is the most popular subject on the timetable, and is not perceived as work at all. That’s just fine with us, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have learning objectives for it. The emphasis in the early grades lies on the development of motor co-ordination and muscle tone, on positive attitudes of sportsmanship and on initial sports skills. As the years progress there is more of a focus on sports skills such as baseball, soccer, football, volleyball and basketball. In all grades we are aware of the need simply to get in shape and include conditioning activities throughout our program.
To help parents know what to expect at the transitional grade levels, the staff has prepared the following chart. For some time now it has been our experience that the odd grades – grades one, three, five, and seven are the toughest for students and cause a great deal of stress for both students and parents. CLICK HERE to download our Academic/Spiritual Transitions Guide.
Homework is an essential part of our academic program. It does not represent a failure on the teacher’s part to cover the required work in school time, nor does it represent a failure to cover the work on the student’s part although this may increase the homework load otherwise assigned. Rather, it is intended to build in the student habits of self-discipline and independent study. An extra time commitment arises on occasion for projects. This is one of the main methods of developing research skills. These skills of information-handling are increasingly important in the “information age”. We shall certainly continue to assign them; however, we shall try to be sensitive about the added work they represent and lessen the regular homework load as deadlines approach. The Homework room will be staffed during the first nutrition break everyday – student’s are encouraged to use the homework room to finish assignments, get extra help or caught up on missed work.
© 2011 Timothy Christian School // Owen Sound, Ontario. All Rights Reserved.