Elementary & Middle School
The State of Missouri has defined learning goals for all subject areas at all grade levels K-12, and these are referred to as THE SHOW ME STANDARDS grade level expectations or GLE’s. WCA will view these objectives as a baseline, and students will be challenged to go beyond. The textbooks selected will be excellent tools to help our children learn to think at levels above just fact and comprehension. While we fully recognize the need to memorize facts and develop a knowledge base from which to work, children also need to learn how to use the stored knowledge to analyze and evaluate new situations and solve problems. That is our goal as we cover the objectives outlined in the Missouri Show Me standards. If you would like to review those standards, here is the web site where you will find grade level objectives.
http://dese.mo.gov/divimprove/curriculum/GLE/GLEindex.html
It might also interest parents that, because many of our students have above average ability levels, and some would be in gifted programs if they were enrolled in public schools, the curriculum we will be using is based on the same philosophy as curriculum offered in gifted classes. It seeks to help children learn the facts, and then go beyond the facts, of math, social studies, science, geography, and literature. Teachers help students understand how these subjects actually impact their world. Our constant goal will be to help children understand all that they learn in light of a Christian worldview.
This does not mean that the curriculum will be harder for children who have difficulty learning. Learning facts requires a good memory. All teachers know that the best way to reduce the number of repetitions needed to gain retention is to add meaning. For instance, see how many times you must practice this phone number in order to memorize it - 1-800-356-9377. Now see how many times it takes you to remember - 1-800-Flo-wers. Much less? You are memorizing the same number of digits. You simply added meaning! This is a short course in what we hope to do for our children. We believe it will be good for gifted and challenged both! The textbooks listed above are the best tools we can find to help us accomplish these goals.
