Early Childhood/Kindergarten
The kindergarten program at St. Francis de Sales School provides a welcoming and nurturing environment to promote all students to become successful learners. Our early childhood environments are specifically designed to provoke the curiosity and exploration of children at differing levels of development. By balancing play experiences with academic lessons, children learn to be flexible thinkers and to develop core social skills, such as negotiation, collaboration, and empathy. Children are guided in developing a relationship with God, learning about the world, making friends and building independence and leadership skills.
Religion
The religion curriculum at St. Francis de Sales is infused into the life of the school and all areas of study. Students learn about their faith through academic coursework. Students grow in their faith by diving into the connection of Catholic ideas to other fields of academic study, arts expression, socialization, discipline, and morality. They deepen their spiritual beliefs through prayer, devotional practices, and social outreach.
Language Arts
Our English/Language Arts curriculum is following the practices that view reading, writing and thinking as integrated parts of a whole. Students are guided in daily lessons of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and literary analysis with the purpose of learning to think critically, find and evaluate information, interpret, analyze, express meaning and present ideas through a variety of media and technology.
Math
Our math curriculum, Envision, is designed to engage students in applied quantitative thinking to make sense of numbers and mathematical ideas. Students develop understanding of numbers while using real world applications to show mastery of a skill. The course content includes number sense, geometry, measurement, statistics, probability, and Algebra.
Science
Science is an ongoing process of acquiring and refining knowledge. Through science and engineering practices framed in the Next Generation Science Standards, students use critical thinking, problem-solving and collaboration to master content, make discoveries and solve design challenges. The study of science allows all learners to achieve deeper insight and understanding of the world that God created.
Social Studies
The social studies curriculum provides a coordinated and systematic study of information, skills and concepts from the disciplines of history, geography, political science, economics, anthropology, psychology, law, archaeology, and sociology.
Connections are made to how people over time have shaped the world today in aspects of science, technology, and religion.
Spanish
Our Spanish program emphasizes interpersonal communication by focusing on the development of the four means of communication: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. World language study is part of our core academic studies for grades 7th and 8th..
Music
Our music curriculum is a program that encourages students to develop an understanding of musical concepts through singing and playing instruments. Provides an opportunity to understand music in relation to history, culture, and the arts. Guides students to knowledge of musical concepts through composing and improvising. Students learn musical concepts through reading, notating, analyzing, and evaluating music.
Art
Our art curriculum is a program of sequential experiences that encourages students to develop individual styles of expression using a broad range of media and techniques. They refine their observational skills and critical thinking ability through a formal critique process . In addition to weekly art classes, collaboration with classroom teachers provides cross-curricular experiences designed to develop visual literacy across disciplines.
Physical Education
The physical education program takes a progressive approach from skill development through mastery with an emphasis on lifetime fitness. All students participate in team-building and cooperative activities that focus on and help solidify the values of teamwork and sportsmanship.
Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)
The social and emotional learning program allows students to reflect on their own feelings and how those feelings impact others. Students are given opportunities to develop self awareness and self management skills, foster social skills to maintain healthy relationships with peers and adults, and improve decision making skills and responsible behaviors in school and community settings.
Electives 6-8
Students in 6th through 8th grade are given the opportunity to to select an elective for each quarter. Students participate in electives twice a week with other middle school students. Some electives offered are coding, digital art/design, computer applications, and sign language.