K – 4th

Click on the following links for more information.

Art
Bible
Computer Studies
Key Learnings
Language Arts
Mathematics
Music
Phonics
Science
Social Studies

Using the best current technology and innovative teaching methods, including differentiated instruction, Valley View provides a strong academic foundation with a core curriculum of language arts, science, social studies, and mathematics.

Art

Art offers opportunities for creative self-expression, the development of perceptual awareness, including art appreciation, and recognizing beauty in both the natural world and the constructed environment.

Students learn to manipulate color and form using a wide variety of materials, tools, and techniques in drawing, painting, sculpture, collage, printing, and architecture. Information on the role of art in human history and the development of artistic styles and periods is integrated into every lesson.

Bible

Our Bible curriculum is designed to nurture each child’s spirituality and to strengthen individual faith.

Bible classes focus on personal communication with God, gratitude for God’s gifts, and faith in God’s love for every person. Classroom learning is enriched through encouraging a personal relationship with Jesus, daily personal prayer, formal worship, and service to others.

Daily class worship and Friday morning Chapel provide activities to illustrate lessons from the Bible and help to reinforce these values. Each class sponsors several Chapel programs during the year. 

Computer Studies

Every classroom is equipped with several networked computers with Internet access and CD-ROM capability, as well as software that supports the core curriculum. Students in grades 5-10 use laptops in a 1-1 environment.

  • Kindergarten students begin to learn control of the mouse and navigation of computer menus through games which encourage them to practice phonics and language skills.
  • Students in Grades 1 and 2 learn keyboarding skills and basic word processing, graphics, and spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Word, KidPix, and PowerPoint.
  • In Grades 3 and 4, students improve their keyboarding skills and increase their confidence using multiple software applications. They do research using appropriate search engines and design basic PowerPoint presentations.

<h3id=”key-learnings”>Key Learnings

The Elementary Key Learnings were designed for Adventist elementary schools in North America and provide an overview of the content that students should know and be able to do in each subject area and elementary grade. The results will assist teachers in planning lessons and curriculum for the year. The Key Learnings for grades K-4 are available below:

Kindergarten
First Grade
Second Grade
Third Grade
Fourth Grade

Language Arts

In language arts, our students learn critical thinking, effective communication, and the skills necessary for proficiency in spelling, vocabulary, grammar, phonics, reading, and writing. Always building on what each child knows, we present individual students with materials that will offer a challenge yet permit success. Each student’s progress is closely monitored through monthly evaluations.

Our balanced reading program consists of four components that are used each day: reading aloud, shared reading, guided reading, and independent reading.

New texts are introduced by reading aloud. Students are invited to share the reading when they encounter words and phrases they know.

In guided reading the teacher helps a small group of students of similar ability to read a book. At each session, the children learn basic reading skills, including phonics and comprehension. The teacher helps them develop strategies to deal with increasingly difficult texts; these strategies include recognizing familiar words by sight and understanding the meaning of words from other clues in a sentence. The children also learn to correct themselves if a guess doesn’t make sense.

Our goal is to help each child advance to fluency, capable of reading silently and independently and filled with enthusiasm for books.

Mathematics

Mathematics is taught using a program that encourages discovery of mathematical concepts, emphasizes the traditional learning of basic arithmetic facts and gives a strong foundation in computational skills, particularly mental computation.

In Kindergarten, our goal is to nurture students’ emerging abilities to count, match, sort, order, compare, see patterns, do simple addition and subtraction, and understand space and time. They learn to graph, measure, tell time, read a calendar and perform simple money exchanges.

In Grades 1-4, students advance their knowledge of mathematical concepts in 13 topic areas: problem solving, communication, reasoning, connections, estimation, number sense and numeration, whole number operations, whole number computation, geometry and spatial sense, measurement, statistics and probability, fractions and decimals and patterns and relationships.

Each year, our students’ grasp of mathematical concepts deepens with repeated exposure at increasingly higher levels to the same topic areas.

Music

Music instruction for students in Grades K-2 emphasizes singing and rhythmic movement. The children learn folk songs, dances, and movement games from the United States and around the world. They also explore rhythm with speech, rhymes and body percussion and advance to using basic percussion instruments.

In addition to these activities, students in Grades 3 and 4 begin to read music in several keys. They also study music theory and history.

Phonics

In Kindergarten, students will explore letters and sounds, and will focus on one-to-one letter-sound correspondence in order to decode words, phrases, sentences, and stories. They will also learn common high-frequency words by sight (e.g., the, of, to, you, she, my, etc.).

First Grade students will move on to read and spell regularly spelled one-syllable and two-syllable words, as well as grade appropriate irregularly spelled words. They will also learn to read and spell with final -e and vowel teams, as well as consonant digraphs.

Physical Education

Kindergarten through 4th grade physical education is integrated into the daily schedule of classes. At every grade level, we help children develop and refine their movement and object control skills, stress the importance of physical fitness for a healthy life, emphasize safety and encourage self-discipline, cooperation, sportsmanship and respect for equipment and property.

Kindergarten students work on skills like skipping, jumping, galloping, and jogging. In Grades 1 and 2, students learn to play simple ball games and to pace themselves while jogging longer distances. Students in Grade 3 and 4 continue to increase their endurance in jogging and are able to play complete games. During these games they learn skills, including rules and scoring, that will prepare them to play soccer, volleyball, basketball, and field games.

Science

Our science curriculum combines life science, earth science, physical science and chemistry.

Students at each grade level receive progressively more sophisticated instruction in the scientific method. They gather existing information, form hypotheses and predict expected outcomes, experiment and collect data, organize results, and draw conclusions based on their own work. Each year they become increasingly confident using the equipment and tools of science. Every student in the school is expected to participate in the Science Fair.

Age-appropriate instruction emphasizes activities using hands-on inquiry techniques and field experiences.

  • Kindergarten students, for example, grow their own plants and watch live caterpillars turn into butterflies.
  • Students in Grade 1 learn about the properties of solids and liquids and study the life cycles, structures, and behaviors of a variety of insects and animals.
  • In Grade 2, students become aware of scientific laws as they study balance and motion and study weather and the propagation of plants.
  • Students in Grade 3 make a comprehensive study of their own skeletal and muscular systems and explore the properties of water.
  • In Grade 4, studies in earth science focus on rocks and minerals, landforms, erosion and deposition of land and volcanoes and earthquakes. Students learn about lever and pulley systems in physical science and explore the history of scientific ideas and inventions.

Social Studies

As our students mature at each grade level information is introduced that will help them understand human and environmental interaction, the movement of people, goods, and ideas and cultural development through science and mathematics, literature, art, music, dance, and language. Students also master specific skills, such as the reading of globes, maps, graphs, and diagrams and they learn to use the research tools and methods of historians.

  • Kindergarten students start their exploration of culture and history by studying themselves, their families, and their communities. They begin to understand human diversity as they talk about how people are the same and how they are different. Classroom activities focus on developing leadership skills and good citizenship and on nurturing the children’s sense of responsibility to improve the human condition.
  • In Grade 1, we help students understand the concept of “history” as it relates to themselves and to their families as well as to our country, focusing on Colonial America.
  • Students in Grade 2 study individuals who have “made history” and learn the goals of government and democracy.
  • Our curriculum for Grade 3 focuses on human rights, minorities, and social classes; students develop an appreciation for our democratic, pluralistic, society as they study the American Constitution and American ideals.
  • Students in Grade 4 make a yearlong study of the Regions of America by looking at the history, geography, and natural resources of each, as well as the communities present there today.

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