Curriculum Enhancements

We are excited and proud to share St. Joseph Hill Academy Elementary School's recent curriculum enhancements.
 
Frog Street
 

SJHA Pre-K is very excited to introduce the Frog Street Curriculum. This engaging interactive curriculum program celebrates the joy of learning while children travel down the road to success. Some of the learning activities will be socialization and communication skills. Academic skills will focus on Math, Phonics, Early Literacy, and Religion. We will have Creative Arts, Music and Movement activities. Children will participate in group projects, discussions, and many learning games.

We will have practice activities in centers. We also learn the alphabet, the sounds, and the numbers through various types of experiences and the Letter People Preschool Program. Most importantly the children will learn to socialize and be a part of the group. They will learn to take turns, and share and work cooperatively together.

kindergarten
 
As educators we are dedicated to the continued exploration of innovative teaching modalities to help inform our pedagogy in the humanities and literacy curricular. Students are offered the opportunity to read, write and explore various genres of literature to foster a love of reading and draw connections between subject and content areas. Recognizing that students in grades K to 3 are learning to read while students in grades 4 and above are reading to learn, faculty participate in a variety of professional development opportunities that promote phonetic awareness and continue to develop reading and writing across the curricula. These programs will aid in providing differentiated instruction for students at all levels of learning.
 
 

SJHA believes it is essential to provide our students with social and emotional learning opportunities for their overall well-being and mental health. At Hill, we have dedicated a Catapult counselor and ADAP counselor who work with our students at varying grade levels on a range of social and emotional learning topics including mindfulness, academic skills for success, and so on. 

Opportunities for facilitated discussion and reflection with a trained counselor about positive attitudes and having a growth mindset will shift the way students think in the long term. It gives them the tools to better understand, manage, and communicate their emotions and encourages them to care about themselves and the world around them.

 

writers workshop

 

SJHA's Junior High Writers' Workshop is designed to assist students become confident and capable writers. During the Writers' Workshop, they have the opportunity to work independently and with their classmates. Students actively engage in the writing process, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing their work. With Mr. O'Keefe, the Writers’ Workshop is focused on developing active critical thinking, reading and writing skills. Students will learn the importance of annotating, close reading, and summarizing to enhance their ability to read and break down complex information. They will also apply the knowledge and skills they acquire through this process to their own writing.

Students will prepare both fiction and nonfiction pieces, completing a variety of assignments from creative writing to research papers. Our focus will be on sensory details, expansion of vocabulary, transition words and phrases, reinforcement of English conventions, and clear organization of ideas and arguments.

Our Hill students have so many wonderful ideas, and we hope that this class will help them to express these ideas more effectively in their writing. Writers’ Workshop grades are part of a student's English Language Arts (ELA) grade.

SJHA offers a Spanish Language course for all Pre-K 3 to 5th Grade students and welcomed our new Spanish teacher Ms. Jennifer Jimenez. Veteran teacher Mrs. Nichole Edelman continues to teach Spanish three times a week to grades 6 through 8. Learning another language at an early age gives children so many great benefits! Research shows that learning a second language boosts problem solving, critical thinking, listening skills and overall academic development. It also nurtures their curiosity. 
SJHA offers a Public Speaking course taught by Mr. Mike Smith and designed to introduce 7th Grade students to the foundational skills and concepts related to effective communication in front of an audience. It is helping students to learn communication skills like how to structure a speech or debate and proper speech delivery techniques and it is building their confidence. The skills they begin to form in this class will likely improve their academic success in the future as well and will have benefits beyond the classroom setting.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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St. Joseph Hill Academy is proud to provide a unique educational opportunity for our 8th-grade students. In addition to our rigorous academic curriculum, we offer Algebra 1 Regents and Living Environment Regents courses. These advanced courses empower our students to excel in mathematics and biology, preparing them for the challenges of high school and beyond. At St. Joseph Hill Academy, we believe in fostering academic excellence and preparing our students for a bright future.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Ms. Teresa Maresca began teaching STEM classes in Grades Pre-K 3 to 5 this 2023-2024 school year. Following mostly Project Lead the Way Launch curriculum, the STEM lessons are providing a foundation for students to develop problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and foster their innate curiosity. They are being exposed to basic concepts in science and engineering and learning through hands-on activities. Ms. Maresca's lessons involve mostly collaborative projects that promote teamwork. It's also a great way for students to develop creativity and, clearly, has real-world relevance. Academically, it also prepares students for our Junior High's rigorous PLTW Gateway Program.
 

SJHA adopted hands-on Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) for our K-8. The NGSS have three distinct and equally important dimensions to learning science: crosscutting concepts, science and engineering practices, and disciplinary core ideas. They were developed to give educators the flexibility to design classroom learning experiences that stimulate students’ interests in science and prepare them for college, careers, and citizenship.

 

Our hands-on STEM programs align NGSS to our award-winning PLTW curriculum.

 
 
 
 
 
 
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