212 Lawrence Street, Methuen MA 01844
St. Monica School’s elementary curriculum is designed to nurture the whole child—academically, socially, and spiritually—within a strong and supportive community. Students engage in a structured and research-based literacy program through Superkids, which builds reading, comprehension, grammar, and phonics skills in a systematic and engaging way. Writing is thoughtfully integrated across subject areas, helping students express ideas clearly and confidently. In mathematics, students benefit from the rigor and problem-solving approach of Eureka Squared Math, developing a deep understanding of concepts and real-world application skills.
Religion is at the heart of the curriculum, with the Sadlier program guiding students in their faith formation, moral development, and relationship with God. Highlighted by meaningful traditions tied to the liturgical year, such as; All Saints Day presentations and Stations of the Cross. Science and Social Studies instruction encourage curiosity, critical thinking, and a broader understanding of the world, often connecting learning to real-life experiences. Weekly enrichment classes—including music, STEM, physical education, and art—provide students with opportunities to explore creativity, innovation, and physical wellness. Within this well-rounded program, students thrive in a positive, faith-filled environment where strong relationships with teachers and peers foster confidence, collaboration, and a genuine love of learning.
Religion
Sadlier, We Believe Grade 1 centers on God Loves Us. It teaches the students growing in Faith through Bible stories, prayer, and family service suggestions while strengthening their Catholic Identity. It is all taught through engaging pictures, songs, and activities.
Reading
Superkids Reading program begins in the first grade with a three-week review to help children refresh the skills taught in kindergarten. As we move forward in the program, they will expand their letter-sound knowledge to include consonant digraphs, long vowels, and vowel phonemes, and learn to read and form words with endings. They will begin to use phonetic and structural patterns to help them decode and encode. Their comprehension and fluency skills will increase as they read longer and more difficult fiction and informational texts. They will also learn to write longer and more structured narratives, informational texts, and opinion pieces.
Math
Eureka Squared Math Grade 1 begins with a quick review of basic number skills learned in kindergarten. As it progresses, we advance number skills to include numbers and number words to 100, addition and subtraction facts to 20, 2-digit addition and subtraction, and regrouping in both addition and subtraction. Each chapter includes word problems. They will graph, recognize, and count all coins, learn to tell time by the hour and half-hour, geometry, and measurement.
English
Voyages in English enables students to master the skills in grammar through direct instruction, practice, written application, and ongoing assessments in sentence structure, nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, conjunctions, word study, and study skills.
Science
The Nancy Larson Science Program for Grade 1 focuses on life science and the children’s environment. The world around them is studied with hands-on activities as Developmental Scientists, Botanists, Environmental Scientists, Zoologists, Physiologists, and Entomologists.
Social Studies
The Pearson My World Social Studies Program engages the student using relatable pictures and topics. We discover My School and Community, Wants and Needs, basic map skills, Our Culture, and relating time to the past and present.
Religion
As students continue on their journey with the Catholic faith, second-grade students will learn about Original Sin and what it means to be made in God’s image. Students will understand that Jesus sacrificed Himself to save us all from Original Sin. Catholic students will prepare for the celebration of two sacraments: First Penance and First Holy Communion.
Language Arts
Second-grade students participate in the Superkids Reading Program. Through this program, students further their reading and writing abilities by learning even more letter sound pairs and other phonemic awareness rules. Students will learn and demonstrate their understanding of basic grammar and syntax structures, such as parts of speech, synonyms/antonyms, and build on their vocabulary. In addition to the Superkids Reading Program, second-grade students also learn and practice cursive handwriting.
Math
Second-grade students use the Sadlier Math Program. The overall goal for students is to master and comprehend place value. Students will master number fluency 0-1,000. By the end of second grade, students will be able to comprehend and solve up to 3-digit addition and subtraction arithmetic problems. Students will master skip counting by 5’s, 10’s, and 100’s, in preparation for multiplication.
Social Studies
Second-grade students focus on and learn about the relationship between themselves and their community. Students learn about various community service members and what it means to be good community members themselves. Students will then start to understand key features on a map and cardinal directions.
Science
Second-grade students participate in and follow along with the Nancy Larson Science Program. This rigorous program starts by explaining that everything is made up of matter and moves on from there. During the course of the school year, students will study the characteristics of various geodes and experiment with simple machines.
Religion
Children will learn about the origins, characteristics, and work of the Church.
They will increase their understanding of how we, as the Church, celebrate the liturgical year. The children will also learn ways to love God and others, and to live the Great Commandments. They will pray using the following
forms of prayer: adoration, blessing, petition, intercession, thanksgiving, and praise. Students will discover how people work together to serve a parish and will discover ways they can serve. Also, students will choose ways to live as witnesses of Jesus Christ through acts of generosity and caring.
Grammar
Third-grade students will construct sentences using several parts of speech organized into a meaningful pattern that expresses a complete thought. There will be comprehensive learning of types of sentences, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, punctuation, and abbreviations. Written and oral communication are also part of third-grade learning. Specifically, third graders will learn what makes a great personal narrative, how to write a good “how-to” article, what makes a good description, understand the organization of a personal letter, write and present an oral book report, understand how to find facts for a research report, and understand the characteristics of persuasive writing.
Vocabulary
Third graders will use conventional spelling for high-frequency words and other studied words and for adding prefixes and suffixes to base words. They will use spelling patterns and generalizations (e.g., word families, position-based spellings, syllable patterns, ending rules, meaningful word parts) in writing words. Students will learn to use reference materials, determining the meaning of the new word formed when a known affix is added to a known word. They will use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root, use glossaries or dictionaries, both print and digital, to determine or clarify the precise meaning of keywords and phrases.
Math
Third graders will learn, read, and write numbers to 1000. They will continue building on their work with addition and subtraction from second grade, using place value to help estimate to find sums and differences of 3-digit numbers. Students will represent multiplication and division with diagrams and by using repeated addition or subtraction, number lines, arrays, and equal groups. By the end of third grade, students will have mastery of multiplication and division facts. Students will develop an understanding of fractions by examining equivalency and comparing them. They will also learn about measurement units such as length, volume, and mass. Students will read different types of graphs and then create their own graphs using the given data. Telling time to the minute and working with elapsed time will be part of the operations of time lessons. The geometry unit will include learning how to describe, draw, compose, and decompose polygons and draw various quadrilaterals. Recognizing area as an attribute of plane figures and understanding concepts of area measurement and finding perimeters of shapes by counting the edges of squares on a grid or adding the side lengths will extend students’ understanding of the measurement of geometric figures to include perimeter.
Reading
Third-grade students will read across various genres. They will learn and practice reading strategies such as asking and answering questions, making and confirming predictions, synthesizing, retelling, and summarizing stories, determining the central message and theme of a story, and determining the author’s point of view. Students will use text structures such as comparing and contrasting, sequencing, problem and solution, and cause and effect to determine the author’s purpose for writing a specific text. They will learn figurative language to help aid in the comprehension of text. Students will identify common structural elements of a text and describe how each successive part of the text builds on earlier sections. Describing characters in a story and explaining how their actions contribute to the sequence of events will be part of their reading comprehension practice. Students will also determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text. Using context clues in the text and visuals to find the meanings of unfamiliar words will be part of the skills they will acquire in third grade.
Science
Students will begin third grade by exploring our solar system. They will learn to identify the cause of Earth’s seasons, the phases of the Moon, inner and outer planets, and compare terrestrial planets and gas giants. From there, students will learn how to identify the building blocks of the universe, classify elements on the Periodic Table of the Elements as solids, liquids, or gases, identify characteristics of atoms and molecules, and observe how heat creates a chemical change. They will observe and compare physical and chemical changes, describe, and demonstrate the movement of molecules in solids, liquids, and gases, measure temperature using a thermometer, observe and measure the changes in temperature, and observe and describe physical changes such as vaporization and condensation. Students will investigate changes in our atmosphere, identify what meteorologists do, describe the water cycle, and estimate wind speed.
Identifying the Earth’s surface, identifying the causes and effects of earthquakes and volcanoes will be part of exploring the Earth’s Structure lessons. In addition, students will examine the structure and function of parts of seed plants, classify plants, and be able to describe how plants make their own food by photosynthesis.
Social Studies
Third-grade students will learn the physical geography of the United States, including landforms and bodies of water. They will learn about the environment, including water, climate, and natural resources. Students will learn how to use natural resources, human resources, and capital resources to produce goods and services. They will learn that American exploration and settlement resulted in changes in the lives of people at that time, and how the changes caused by American exploration and settlement affect our lives today. In addition, students will learn about government, landmarks, and symbols that help unite citizens, citizenship, and civic engagement. They will learn how life has changed throughout history. Learning how culture is shared will be part of their new understanding of our nation’s diversity.
Religion
In grade 4, students continue to build their relationship with God through learning and living God’s Ten Commandments. Students dive deep into learning how to love and honor God and one another. Students learn this through parables, scriptures, and song. Grade 4 students will continue to learn about the communion of saints and how we can answer God’s call to be saints. Liturgical seasons and traditions will be highlighted. Students will also participate in weekly liturgies and have various service opportunities throughout the year.
Math
In fourth grade math, we use Sadlier Math 2019. We start off the year by reviewing place value, addition, and subtraction, which we were taught in third grade. We will take those skills and apply them to multiplication concepts and multi-digit multiplication. After multiplication, students dive into division, including factors, multiples, and fractions. Decimals will also be used in all operations. We will learn how to work with fractions, and students will also learn how to perform all operations. We end our book with measurements, lines, and polygons. While learning these skills, we utilize technology with videos and interactive computer games. In fourth grade, we also use IXL every night to ensure that skills being taught in class are still present while out of the classroom. We do individual and group activities to enhance the skills being taught. In our classroom, we learn skills that will help to prepare us for fifth grade and the skills we will learn the following year.
Science
In fourth grade science, we use the Nancy Larson program. This program gives us access to a variety of interactive videos, activities, and tools to learn about each topic. We will uncover and discuss different cells and their characteristics and functions. We also look into nature by exploring parts of a plant, different types of animals, and ecosystems. We then move away from nature and turn to energy and electricity. Our science program will provide students with their own booklets for them to work on and complete activities. These booklets will have charts for students to fill in as well as different activities. We focus on keywords and make sure we define and highlight them in our books.
Vocabulary
The Sadlier Vocabulary Workshop program uses a variety of tools to implement new terms into students’ vocabulary. Each unit (18 total) begins with a passage that introduces the new terms and how they are used, and what they sound like. Other activities include synonyms and antonyms, matching definitions, pronunciation, parts of speech, and how they are used in sentences. Each unit also helps students build vocabulary beyond the unit words, such as learning word parts (prefixes, suffixes, and roots to decode unknown words), as well as learning different meanings of figurative language, such as idioms, proverbs, similes, and metaphors.
Grammar
In Voyages in English, students learn a multitude of different ways of understanding grammar and writing. This includes analyzing, arguing, and applying methods of effective communication. Students learn a total of seven chapters, with each chapter divided into eleven lessons. These lessons include sentences, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, and punctuation and capitalization. Bonus chapters also include multiple writing techniques such as: personal narratives, How-to articles, formal letters, descriptions, creative writing fables, persuasive writing, expository writing, and research reports.
Reading
The HMH Into Reading curriculum builds students’ understanding of academic vocabulary and real-world topics by using critical/strategic thinking and reading skills. Each module teaches students how to recognize and use citing text evidence, genre characteristics, as well as increasing knowledge in various content areas to build/make meaning of the readings. Each Module is organized into central ideas and questions with five readings in each module. Central ideas for each module in fourth grade are: What makes us who we are? Come to your senses, Rise to the Occasion, Heroic Feats, and Art Everywhere. Each story also ends with collaborative discussion questions as well as short writing exercises. Students complete summative essays at the end of each module by using the information and knowledge that they learned and apply those skills to writing assignments.
Social Studies
Each Chapter begins with the Big Questions, where students are introduced to the topic, grounded in the instruction, and encouraged to draw upon and apply previous knowledge. A Jumpstart activity is designed to activate the topic at the opener in fun and engaging ways. Finally, the Sing/Rap about it feature introduces students to chapter vocabulary in the form of a song or rap. The Quest activity is an inquiry project that takes place over the course of the entire chapter. Students are presented with a real-world problem & students apply their knowledge and demonstrate their understanding in a final project (essay, discussion, presentation, physical/digital product. Reading checks are also provided to check for understanding of what was previously read, content vocabulary, as well as increasing word skills, writing skills, Map and graph skills, critical thinking skills, and literacy skills, lessons in which students apply and demonstrate their learning. Specific areas learned are Geography of the United States, Americans and their history, Government in the United States, The Nation’s economy, and Regions in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, and West.
