Curriculum

At OLC we believe in teaching the whole child in an authentic way. Our approach includes differentiating instruction to target individual needs, emphasizing student engagement to foster an environment for lifelong learning, and focusing on creating a student centered environment. At the core of all we do is our faith, instilling morals and values in our students through both our Catholic Identity and the Responsive Classroom approach.

Tiny Tikes, Pre-K3 & Pre-K4
We use the Creative Curriculum program. Creative Curriculum is a research-based curriculum that features inquiry, exploration, and discovery as the foundation of all learning. Our students learn in multidisciplinary ways, for example, while learning about the Bug Unit, students in PreK 3 will hatch butterflies, go on nature bug walks, learn about the life cycle and name the body parts. They will read books, sing songs, and create art all about bugs. Our students love going through different topics of study and becoming experts in various topics!

The Pre-Kindergarten curriculum is designed to teach children through themes and center-based learning classrooms. This encourages children to make their own choices about selecting activities. The program creates confidence, self-motivation and independent thinkers. Children will also learn pro-social behavior skills including cooperation, sharing, problem solving and taking turns. Through family involvement our program builds essential bridges between school and home.

Our religion program “Stories of God’s Love” introduces the children to the importance of God and his creations.  The students will learn peacemaking skills through lessons designed for Pre-Kindergarten students.  Virtues are introduced to the children daily at circle time.  These combined help the children to develop a Christian attitude of loving, caring, helping, and sharing.

Mathematical skills are learned through activities such as identifying numbers 1-20, patterning and graphing.  Hands-on activities are incorporated through our weekly lessons.

Language and literacy are developed through pre-reading readiness skills such as letter and sound recognition.  Story comprehension is developed through a variety of hands-on speaking activities.

Emergent writing skills are developed through proper pencil grasp and letter tracing activities.  These skills give the students a solid foundation for reading readiness for Kindergarten.

Social studies skills are learned through themes such as families, communities and holidays.

Science skills are learned through hands-on activities.  The students are introduced  to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and math) through projects that encourage building, exploring, experiments and creating which will build a solid base for understanding concepts later on.
 

Students in Kindergarten through 8th Grade our students use the following curriculum:

Reading/Writing: The Teachers College Reading and Writing Workshop from Columbia University.

Mathematics: GoMath

Science and Social Studies: TCI

Penmanship:  D'Nealian handwriting/cursive

Religion: Be My Disciples by RCL Benzinger

Spanish: Sonrisas Spanish
 

Additional Curricular Information Below

Reading

Students begin the year building a love for reading by developing reading routines and strategies that lay the foundation for decoding and comprehension skills. Students in the primary grades gather for short lessons with targeted teaching points that they can apply to their books during independent reading. Teachers confer with children during this time to support individual needs. Students also meet in small groups to work on comprehension skills, such as making connections, inferring and predicting, and asking questions. We build upon letter knowledge and concepts of print during word study and encourage students to apply these skills to their texts while reading. 

Writing

We practice a writing workshop model, including a mini lesson, independent writing, conferring, and small group work. Students learn to plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish their work.  We celebrate their work with Publishing Parties to praise their writing accomplishments throughout the year. There is a focus on developing each student’s writing stamina. 

To view a complete list of Math and Language Arts curriculum maps for the Archdiocese of Newark, click here.