Intermediate Grades
Grade 3
Third grade marks an important time in a child’s education as they become more independent and mature learners. In 3rd grade, students progress from practicing basic skills to mastering them and moving on to develop more complex skills, such as writing in cursive and adding fractions.
In third grade, our daily religious life is focused on learning and practicing virtues. We learn about and memorize the Apostles’ Creed and host a Living Saint Museum on All Saints’ Day.
Third graders become more advanced readers and thinkers, digging deeper into topics to analyze what they learn, while using a variety of complex texts.
Major math concepts emphasized in third grade are: multiplication and division facts, measurement, geometry and fractions.
Units of study include the Native American Indians and the U.S. government.
We study units of the life cycle, force and motion, magnetism, and the water cycle, using Mystery Science. The students also experience being the Scientist of the Week in which they demonstrate the scientific method while performing an experiment in front of the class.
Parent Overview Common Core State Standards | Grade 3
Grade 4
As students enter upper elementary school, they are still challenged to become more independent learners. An overnight field trip to the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park in Coloma, California is one of the highlights of the year.
Daily religious instruction in fourth grade focuses on the following units: The Goodness of God, Jesus as the Son of God, The Holy Spirit, The Church, and Social Justice. The fourth graders continue to experience weekly Mass. The students use personal Bibles to gain a basic understanding of its structure, and that it is the foundation for our Catholic teaching.
We read a variety of novels to study the elements of a story. Following the California Common Core Standards, we use interactive notebooks to reinforce our learning. In our weekly writing assignments, we are able to master paragraph form and practice our creative writings. Students are challenged to read.
The mathematical concepts we study are: multi-digit Multiplication, Division, Fractions and Geometry. We use our knowledge to tackle word problems to bring math into our everyday lives through exploration and cooperative groups.
Our class focus this year is all things California. From history to the present day, we study different regions of our great state, the California Missions and the Gold Rush. Through our study of the Missions, we learn to write reports and give oral presentations.
Through STEM, we learn about living things, the earth’s crust, electricity and magnetism.
Parent Overview Common Core State Standards | Grade 4
Grade 5
Fifth Grade is a special year as students become more independent as they prepare for Middle school.
As a class, we guide, inspire, and pray with each other, as we study the life and teachings of Jesus. The students study scripture, the parts of the Mass, saints, and the sacraments.
The students begin their day with Daily Oral Language, where they sharpen their basic skills in spelling, capitalization, punctuation, grammar, and usage. The class also has the opportunity to read novels and stories, while working on their comprehension and reading level. We strengthen our writing skills through a variety of activities. Writing is practiced throughout the fifth grade curriculum.
Students learn about the United States and how it came to be what it is today. Students create presentations, projects and research, to increase their American knowledge.
Students have an opportunity to read and learn about life and earth science. They also participate in STEM activities and labs, to meet the needs of all learning styles.
The focus is on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with whole numbers, decimals, and fractions. Students are also introduced to algebra and geometry concepts that will continue throughout their middle and high school education.