Lower School (Kindergarten - 3)

First Grade is an exciting year for our students! The children are eager to wear uniforms and give up naps . . . just like the big kids! Our highly differentiated first grade program encourages increasing independence and leadership as we teach routines to foster good study skills.

In addition to the rapid development of cognitive abilities, this year is one of tremendous physical, social, and emotional growth. First graders are maturing rapidly, and this is an excellent year for character-building lessons that will continue throughout the EDS experience. These are the building blocks for a successful academic career.

The Reading and Language Arts program continues the heavy emphasis on phonics-based lessons from PreK4 and Kindergarten and accelerates learning by including many opportunities for speaking, reading, and writing. Students have many opportunities to read daily including; reading individually to the teacher and teaching assistant, independent reading, reading aloud, and reading at home nightly. English grammar, mechanics, and the writing process are taught systematically as well. The curriculum being taught is Zaner-Bloser, Superkids Reading Program. This curriculum is also aligned and taught in kindergarten through second grade. The Accelerated Reader program encourages reading and increases reading ability by giving the young reader the confidence to read more challenging books. Reading levels are evaluated four times a year using the STAR Reader diagnostic tool. Because the strongest educational foundation for life-long learners is the ability to read, speak, and write clearly, these skills are heavily emphasized.

Manipulatives, games, practice, and mathematical reasoning are all part of the diverse approach to the Mathematics program. The emphasis on our program is on developing number sense and understanding mathematical concepts rather than just learning algorithms. Manipulatives are always available as the children develop number sense and learn about time, measurement, fractions and probability, geometry, graphing and data collection, and place value, as well as computation. Math Fact Fluency will become part of everyday conversation with your first grader as they master math facts. This is a special part of the first grade math program that makes learning fun while reinforcing basic skills.

Social Living units allow children to explore the world around them through hands-on activities, field trips, and cross-curricular projects. Units include Being a Scientist, Magnets, Matter, Apples, Bats, Pumpkins, Seasons, Animal Classes, Weather, Penguins, Life Cycles, and Living and Non-Living. Our biome, the special habitat first graders study, is Grasslands. First grade; along with sixth grade, work together to restore the grasslands along the Gulf Coast with LSU Coastal Roots.

The Religion program includes Chapel, Eucharist, and weekly classroom lessons, as well as the many opportunities that arise during a first grader’s day to discuss virtues, choices, and character development. There is a three-year rotating cycle in place in the school to study the Old Testament, New Testament, and church history and tradition. In conjunction with the Religion program, first grade students are encouraged to participate as a class in outreach projects. Our current outreach program is Operation Christmas Child.This allows the children to see what a difference even a first grader can make.

EDS offers wonderful enrichments in addition to the regular classroom program. Each week the children attend classes in music, art, physical education, library, computer, and Spanish. Field trips typically include a Houston Zoo, and special events such as the Grant Christmas Tree Farm. Our traditional celebrations include Donuts with Dad and Muffins with mom. Both events give the opportunity to invite our families in and be celebrated with hand-made gifts, personalized writings, and memorable experiences with their child. In addition to thorough curriculum, technology is frequently used in whole group, small group and individual instruction to elevate learning experiences. This includes Ricoh Boards, classroom desktop computers, and iPads, which are all used for daily learning and serves as a formative assessment tool.

Each activity in first grade is designed to develop a skill that will be used for life. The skills are presented to reach all learners-visual, auditory, and kinesthetic/tactile. They are reinforced in a manner that will generate interest and curiosity to seek more knowledge. This is the beginning of happy life-long learners!

In second grade, the Reading curriculum is tailored to support each student’s learning journey. Our curriculum emphasizes comprehension, oral reading, word knowledge, and word meaning utilizing the SuperKids reading program. This multimodal approach engages students through various senses, providing multiple pathways to grasp reading and writing skills. To ensure personalized attention, students work in small groups aligned with their reading levels. Novel studies are an integral part of our program, with students participating in “book clubs” to discuss and delve into the material. Additionally, the Accelerated Reader Program plays a crucial role in tracking and fostering individual comprehension and vocabulary skills. Each child receives AR goals based on their reading ability, as determined by the STAR reading assessment completed every nine weeks. This approach guarantees progression at a pace suited to their unique needs. Our aim is to foster a love for reading while ensuring consistent growth in every student’s reading capability.

In our current English Language Arts curriculum, our comprehensive approach covers all key areas including spelling, phonics, reading, and writing. The curriculum is designed to ensure daily practice in both manuscript and cursive, fostering neat and legible handwriting. Embedded within the SuperKids reading program, the writing curriculum complements daily reading lessons. This integration allows students to progress at their individual levels while applying writing conventions, spelling strategies, and expressing their creativity. Peer editing exercises and one-on-one teacher conferences are pivotal in nurturing their writing skills. Our curriculum also emphasizes the importance of sharing work and exchanging constructive feedback. Instructing students on identifying parts of speech, composing friendly letters, and crafting complete sentences is paramount. They are taught to use proper capitalization and punctuation, draw conclusions, initiate paragraph writing, and discern the main idea and supporting details in texts. These elements are not just part of our curriculum; they are central to many objectives specifically targeted for second-grade learners.

Our current Math curriculum allows us to utilize a variety of strategies to ensure a comprehensive learning experience for our students. In our use of Progress in Mathematics, we start with a brief review of foundational skills such as addition, subtraction, place value, and ordinal numbers which students have encountered in first grade. We then advance to more complex topics including addition and subtraction with regrouping, involving multiple addends, as well as measurement, time, money, fractions, and basic geometry. Multiplication and division concepts are introduced at this stage to broaden their mathematical understanding. To make math both meaningful and enjoyable, we incorporate learning centers heavily into our strategy. We provide manipulatives to reinforce concepts and place a strong emphasis on solving word problems. Students are taught multiple strategies to tackle these problems effectively. Small group work is a critical component of our approach, allowing for additional teacher support and ensuring that the curriculum pace is suitable for all learners. Additionally, students engage with IXL and Xtra Math to further reinforce the skills they've learned in a fun and interactive manner.

Our Social Studies curriculum ensures that an engaging and informative learning environment is provided to our students. We currently have a robust program, Little Minds at Work, that interweaves geography, economics, civics and government, and history, providing a comprehensive educational experience. Each week our students stay updated with current events and sharpen their non-fiction reading abilities using a variety of resources that correlate with our Louisiana State Standards. This is essential for them to extract meaning and information effectively. Moreover, our curriculum is designed to complement the reading program, with special units that explore national holidays, world celebrations, and cultural diversity. Through oral biography presentations and research projects on presidents, students gain insight into the lives of influential figures and compare historical lifestyles with contemporary living standards. Projects showcasing their understanding of geography are a key component of our program, allowing students to creatively express their knowledge. Additionally, we delve into the workings of government, examining its various branches to provide students with a clear understanding of civic structures.

In Science, we utilize Little Minds at Work, which offers a comprehensive overview of essential topics including animals, plants, weather, states of matter, encompassing earth, health, and physical sciences. Our approach is hands-on, with experiments integrated into every lesson, ensuring that students are actively engaged in their learning. We place a special emphasis on earth science, with guided lessons designed to spark curiosity and deepen understanding. A highlight of our curriculum is the unit focused on the pond biome. EDS is fortunate to have an on-site pond equipped with a waterfall, indigenous flora, and a variety of aquatic life. This feature serves as a living classroom, allowing students to observe the seasonal dynamics of the pond ecosystem and understand the importance of water quality and the symbiotic relationships between the organisms that inhabit it. The unit culminates in the spring with an exciting field trip to the EDS pond, coinciding with our Easter egg hunt and celebration. This provides a practical extension of our studies and a memorable experience for the students!

We have impactful initiatives underway at EDS to cultivate a culture of empathy and service among our students. Our second-grade class is actively engaged in assembling "Blessing Bags" filled with essential supplies for the homeless within our community. This hands-on project not only provides immediate relief to those in need but also instills in our young learners the importance of giving back. Additionally, our students have demonstrated their compassion and support for first responders by collecting items during critical times, such as the recent wildfires. These activities are integral to our mission at EDS, where we aim to nurture a service heart in every student, teaching them the value of empathy and community support. We believe that these experiences are as vital to our students' development as the academic excellence we provide. It is through these acts of kindness that our students learn to extend their hands and hearts to others, a lesson that will serve them well throughout their lives.

Integration of technology in our second-grade curriculum is something we have strived to achieve. Each classroom is equipped with 12 iPads, 4 computers, and a Ricoh board, ensuring that technology is a staple in all subject areas. Students are engaging with technology through research, center work, and leading activities on the smart board. Our approach allows them to become proficient with tools like World Book, which they use for research across various subjects throughout the year.

Enrichments are an exciting time for our students. Second graders attend Spanish, Art, Computer Technology, Library, and Physical Education as part of our broad curriculum.

The Third Grade is such a pivotal year. Whereas first and second grade students are learning to read, third-grade students are reading to learn.  There is much new content and many exciting opportunities and areas of growth for students. In the third grade we strive to help students become more independent, responsible, and, of course, more knowledgeable. We seek to empower our students to face challenges with confidence, to embrace mistakes as opportunities to grow, and to realize that they are leaders and lifelong learners. Along the way, we have lots of fun, create many good memories, seek to help students feel good about themselves, and have countless opportunities to smile and laugh together.

Our reading program encompasses several approaches: guided reading, independent reading, explicit instruction of reading skills, explicit instruction of vocabulary strategies, and interdisciplinary reading and writing. We begin reading longer novels and working through more interdisciplinary theme units in the third grade. Our first unit of the year is an exciting (and yummy) “Countries of the World” research unit which incorporates technology.  Students in the third grade enjoy one-to-one laptops for this and other reading projects and practice. As the reader becomes more adept in his/her reading skills at this age, longer novels allow for a more in-depth character and plot analysis, as well as increased opportunities for related research and projects. A couple of our favorite novels in the third grade are The Tale of Despereaux and Because Of Winn Dixie, two award-winning books by Newbery-award winning author Kate diCamillo. We also read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl in another fun, interdisciplinary theme unit about chocolate. Our third-grade reading students enjoy starring in the play Vacation To Mars in a cross-curricular unit between reading and science. Reader’s Theater is always a favorite of our third-grade students. As a culminating event for our Vacation to Mars unit, our students visit the Houston Museum of Natural Science where they participate in a simulated trip to the planet Mars. Students utilize their reading and other skills to solve problems, complete tasks and goals, and handle “emergencies” on the trip.  The Accelerated Reading program gives the children opportunities to track independent reading. Regarding reading, our goal in third grade is to inspire a love for the written word and create enthusiastic, lifetime readers!

The language arts program is a comprehensive study of grammar, mechanics, usage, and vocabulary practice. The broad scope of skills and range of difficulty provided in digital and print materials enable us to precisely target what each student needs. Units from the textbook (Houghton Mifflin English - Gr 3 & 4) are enhanced with songs, stories, and kinesthetic learning to reach the students in as many ways as possible. Lessons and activities are integrated into other subjects and applied in writing regularly.  Spelling begins with standards-based English rules and ends with individualized small group work from the Words Their Way program. The program provides systematic, explicit, and sequenced instruction based on assessment results. Groups are created with a pretest in December but are adjusted if, and when, necessary.  Learning the logic behind the spelling or pronunciation of a new word creates better understanding of vocabulary over rote memorization of spelling lists. Nonsense word practice provides proof of understanding. IXL and other interactive sites are used weekly to reinforce learning.

The math program provides the student with an opportunity to learn math through involvement, understanding, practice, and application. In third grade, students know that doing mathematics involves solving problems and discussing how they solved them. As third graders develop their mathematical communication skills, they use clear and precise language. This is a main area of focus in our third grade math program: math vocabulary.  Math vocabulary is not often used in everyday conversations, so it is important that our third graders and their teacher(s) practice the use of precise and correct math terminology when doing and explaining math. As the saying goes, “If we don’t use it, we will lose it.”  Third graders often use concrete objects and/or pictures to help them conceptualize and solve problems. Students and their teacher(s) represent problem situations in multiple ways including numbers, words/ math vocabulary, drawing pictures, using objects, acting out, making a chart, list, or graph, creating equations, etc.  This is another important focus in our program: deepening our understanding of mathematical concepts and problem situations through visual, verbal, and tactile representations.

We begin the year with place value and a review of addition and subtraction. We then begin working on the two main content areas for the third grader to master: multiplication and division. The third grader will also be introduced to "real" multiplication (several digits times one and two digits) and "long" division (a number containing several digits divided by a one-digit divisor). Fairly thorough (for third grade, that is) introductions to geometry and fractions are given, and continued work on measurement; graphing, numeration, time, and money are also part of the third-grade math program. Math is so much more than the computation of numbers. We give students many opportunities to develop logical and creative thinking skills while solving math-related problems. We also provide opportunities for cooperative and educational games, the use of manipulatives, and real-life applications in mathematics lessons. Our goal is to have students deepen their understanding of mathematics concepts as opposed to having them simply memorize facts and algorithms. Lastly, the beauty of math and the spirit of art combine so naturally that we create several art/math projects each year! One of our very favorite math projects is our hand-knitted hats project where third graders knit hats for local chemotherapy patients and deliver them during the Christmas season.

The social studies program allows students to learn from the past, make connections to the present, and realize their impact on the future. Units of study include First Americans, tribes of Louisiana, the World Heritage Site of Poverty Point, early explorers, and Louisiana history. During the space unit in science, students use the book, Hidden Figures, to explore themes of adversity and discrimination during a Socratic Seminar. “Free choice” projects provide another opportunity to expand into more complex connections for social studies learning topics. Geography lessons are integrated into each unit in order to connect students to the world around us. Students may also compete in an optional geography competition if they qualify. Additionally, the students are given a chance to “show what they know” during our annual trip to the Native American exhibits at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.  

Our science curriculum covers life science, physical science, Earth science, environmental science, and health science. These areas are explored by the learning of factual information in a classroom discussion environment and through hands-on experiments and projects that allow the student to see science at work in our world.  Some favorite units of study include space, ecosystems, force and motion, matter, and plants and their functions.Third grade students play an active role by helping with sustainable gardens, using citizen science apps, and learning about local environmental issues. STEAM challenges for each unit build resilience and problem solving skills while providing opportunities to record and interpret data. We also travel to The Houston Museum of Natural Science for an exciting "outer space" field trip via the Challenger Learning Center. On this trip, students work in teams to complete tasks and communicate results.

To provide a well-rounded program, the students are challenged to become physically healthy in physical education, and to acquire an appreciation of the fine arts in the areas of music and art. The ever-changing world of technology is presented in the "state-of-the-art" computer lab and students regularly visit our library to further their reading development. Third grade students also have the opportunity to develop a working knowledge of the Spanish language. Enrichment programs offered at EDS are second to none!