Preschool and K5

ACADEMICS

Each child is created in the image of God and is learning and developing every day. 
They are apt and eager to learn about the world around them.

At GRCA, we are dedicated to nurturing every aspect of your child’s development. In a secure, Christ-centered setting, our skilled and compassionate educators utilize a hands-on approach to learning, ensuring that each child has the opportunity to learn at their own pace and ability. Our lessons encompass language acquisition, phonological awareness, scientific exploration, numerical concepts, and cultural understanding all with a biblical worldview.

Teachers organize additional activities, such as themed days and excursions, to complement classroom teaching.

ACADEMICS

General Information

Hours

  • Preschool – Half-day sessions: 7:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. (Morning) and 12:15 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. (Afternoon)
  • K5 – Half-day session: 7:45 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.

School will not take place on-site on Mondays. There will be 35 AHE (At Home Enhancement) days. Acceptable AHE assignments include music lessons, reading reports, remedial class work, field trips, etc. Students attend on campus Tuesday through Friday. Mondays are designated At-Home Enhancement days for enrichment, family-directed learning, field trips, music lessons, reading, or assigned academic support.

Daily attendance is expected for both preschool and K5.

Electives

Students will participate in drawing, painting, and crafting activities related to lesson themes, while also developing fine and gross motor skills through prewriting activities, simple games, and group activities. Music will include traditional songs and music games.

Preschool

Bible

Bible time is a priority in our day. We teach our students that God created the world, and because God created the world, He is the King of the world. God has given us His rules to follow in His Word. We all break God’s rules and deserve to be separated from God forever. God sent Jesus to Earth. Jesus kept all of God’s laws and chose to take our punishment so that whoever confesses their sin and believes in Jesus can live with God forever. We teach the students that we can learn more about God and His world by studying the Bible. In Bible class, we teach Bible stories and character traits. We also sing Bible songs and pray.

Phonics

Our phonics lessons focus on pre-reading skills. By the end of the school year, students should be able to identify and make the proper sound for each upper- and lowercase alphabet letter. Most students will also be able to put simple sounds together to make words and will develop phonemic awareness.

Math

Math class is a fun time for learning foundational math skills. By the end of the school year, students should be able to count to 30, identify numbers up to 20, and identify basic shapes and colors. They will be introduced to simple addition and subtraction and develop number sense.

Handwriting

We use the pre-cursive handwriting curriculum to teach students how to write letters and numbers correctly. By the end of the school year, our student can write all their letters and numbers to 20. Students should also be able to write their names.

Science and Social Studies

Each week, we focus on a different theme to teach our students about science and social studies. Some of our themes include community helpers, family, farms, dinosaurs, seasons, outer space, weather, gravity, circus, magnetism, the first Thanksgiving, Christmas, and more.

K5

Language Arts

Prereading: Students will develop print awareness, reasoning skills, phonemic awareness, and listening comprehension through activities like picture reading, classifying, and understanding concepts such as up/down and hard/soft.

Phonics and Word Perception: In Units 1–3, students will learn letter-sound associations for consonants and short vowels, closed syllable phonograms, plural words, compound words, and possessive words. Units 4–6 will cover consonant blends, digraphs, long vowels, r-influenced vowels, and special vowel combinations.

Early Reading Skills: Students will enhance their comprehension, vocabulary, and sequencing abilities by predicting outcomes, answering questions, and distinguishing reality from fantasy. They will also practice reading short stories and engage in oral communication activities like discussion, action rhymes, and retelling stories.

Composition: Students will practice writing by dictating sentence ideas and completing sentence starters.

Handwriting: Focus will be on letter formation, slant, alignment, spacing, pencil hold, and posture.

Reading

Word Recognition: Students will apply phonics concepts from K5 lessons, progressing through Readers 1–34, covering short vowels, consonant blends, digraphs, long vowels, r-influenced vowels, special vowels, word families, high-frequency words, compound words, and words with suffixes.

Comprehension: Students will develop higher-order thinking skills by questioning, predicting text, making inferences, drawing conclusions, comparing, sequencing events, and following directions.

Vocabulary: Students will learn to derive meaning from context.

Literature: Students will read various genres including family stories, informational articles, fanciful animal stories, poetry, Bible accounts, and realistic fiction, and will learn to distinguish reality from fantasy.

Silent Reading: Students will read for specific information and to understand the author’s message.

Oral Reading: Students will communicate the author’s message naturally, portray characters, and respond to punctuation marks like periods, exclamation points, question marks, and quotation marks.

Heritage Studies

Students will learn about US geography, Native American history, colonial life, and various cultural themes such as families, community helpers, Hispanic culture, Bible times, farming, and American celebrations.

Science

Students will explore topics like birds, bugs, magnets, seasons, water, human bodies, weather, rocks, oceans, sun, moon, plants, and animals through hands-on activities.