Curriculum

• Bible The Child's Story Bible, Old Testament
• History Heroes for Young Readers, missionary biographies
• Language Arts Memoria Press Phonics Readers, Spell to Write and Read, Cursive First penmanship
• Literature Beatrix Potter, Winnie the Pooh, Paddington Bear, and other classics
• Math Horizons K
• Science The World Around Me
• Geography Geography Songs, Sing Around the World
• Music Chapel hymns and the Christmas concert
• Physical Education Yes
• Whole school Celebration of Learning and the school play

On the two year cycle. In 2026 / 2027 this room studies the 2nd grade year.

This year

• Bible Veritas Press, Genesis through Joshua
• History Veritas Press, Old Testament and Ancient Egypt
• Science Dinosaur Days, Rock Around the Earth

Next year

• Bible The Child's Story Bible, New Testament
• History Beautiful Feet, Early American History
• Science Hoot and Chirp, Buzz and Bite

Every year, at grade level

• Math Horizons 1 or Horizons 2
• Language Arts Memoria Press Phonics Readers and Shurley Grammar as appropriate, Spell to Write and Read, Cursive First penmanship
• Literature Classic literature, read in groups matched to reading level
• Latin Song School Latin, placed by ability
• Geography Maps, Charts and Graphs, plus Geography Songs
• Music Chapel hymns and the Christmas concert
• Physical Education Yes
• Whole school Celebration of Learning and the school play

On the two year cycle. In 2026 / 2027 this room studies the 4th grade year.

This year

• Bible Veritas Press, Chronicles through Malachi
• History Veritas Press, Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation
• Science Heat and Energy, Electricity and Magnetism, Sound and Light

Next year

• Bible Veritas Press, Judges through Kings
• History Veritas Press, New Testament, Greece and Rome
• Science Habitats, Hollows and Homes

Every year, at grade level

• Math Horizons 3 or Horizons 4
• Language Arts Shurley Grammar, Spell to Write and Read, Cursive First in 3rd, Institute for Excellence in Writing and Classical Roots beginning in 4th
• Literature Classic literature, read in groups matched to reading level
• Latin Latin for Children, placed by ability
• Geography Maps, Charts and Graphs, plus Geography Songs
• Music Chapel hymns and the Christmas concert
• Physical Education Yes
• Whole school Celebration of Learning and the school play

On the two year cycle. In 2026 / 2027 this room studies the 6th grade year.

This year

• Bible Veritas Press, Acts through Revelation
• History Veritas Press, 1815 to the Present
• Science Earth Science, Answers in Genesis

Next year

• Bible Veritas Press, The Gospels
• History Veritas Press, Explorers to 1815
• Science Life Science

Every year, at grade level

• Math Horizons 5 or Horizons 6
• Language Arts Shurley Grammar, Spell to Write and Read, Institute for Excellence in Writing, Classical Roots vocabulary
• Literature Classic literature, read in groups matched to reading level
• Latin Latin for Children, placed by ability
• Geography Maps, Charts and Graphs, plus Geography Songs
• Music Chapel hymns and the Christmas concert
• Physical Education Yes
• Whole school Celebration of Learning and the school play

Every classroom studies Scripture as its own subject, not as a devotional tacked onto the morning. Kindergarten works through The Child's Story Bible in narrative form. From there students use Veritas Press and move through the Bible book by book, and across their years at CCA they cover it from Genesis to Revelation.

Reading Scripture this way matters more than it might sound. Children come to see the Bible as one continuous account rather than a collection of disconnected stories, and they meet it as history, because it is.

Kindergarten begins with missionary biographies, learning about men and women who carried the gospel at real cost. The 1st and 2nd grade room studies early American history through Beautiful Feet in one year of its cycle, reading living books rather than a textbook, and ancient Egypt and the Old Testament world in the other.

From there students work through Western civilization using Veritas Press: Greece and Rome, the Middle Ages through the Reformation, the age of exploration to 1815, and 1815 to the present. Because history and Bible run on the same rotation, a class studying ancient Egypt is reading the Old Testament alongside it. The two subjects illuminate each other all year.

Reading begins with phonics. Kindergarten and 1st grade use Memoria Press Phonics Readers, and all our grades use Spell to Write and Read, a phonics based program that teaches spelling and writing together rather than treating them as separate problems.

Handwriting starts in cursive. Cursive First runs from Kindergarten through 3rd grade, which surprises some parents. Cursive is easier for young hands than printing, it is faster, and it builds a habit of care.

Formal grammar begins in 2nd grade with Shurley Grammar, which teaches sentence structure through jingles and hand motions and, yes, a fair amount of noise. In 4th grade students add the Institute for Excellence in Writing and Classical Roots vocabulary, moving from understanding how sentences work to composing paragraphs and essays with real structure.

All of this happens at each student's level. Reading groups are formed by ability and adjusted as children grow.

Latin begins in 1st grade and continues every year through 6th, grouped by ability rather than by age. Song School Latin introduces vocabulary through songs and games. Students who are ready move into Latin for Children and work through Primer A and Primer B.

Parents reasonably ask why. Latin is the root of a large share of English vocabulary, so a student who knows Latin roots can often work out a word they have never seen. It is also the most orderly language a child can learn, which makes it excellent training for grammar, logic, and any language they take up later. And a good deal of the Western world's writing was done in it.

We use Horizons Math from Kindergarten through 6th grade, and math is always taught at true grade level. In a combination classroom, a 3rd grader does 3rd grade math while a 4th grader does 4th grade math.

Horizons uses a spiral approach, meaning concepts return throughout the year rather than being covered once and set aside. Students keep practicing what they learned in the fall well into the spring, which is how mastery actually forms.

By the end of 6th grade students have worked through place value into the hundred trillions, fractions and decimals, ratios and percentages, integers, exponents and square roots, geometry including angles and bisectors, coordinate graphing in four quadrants, mean, mode and median, and practical arithmetic like writing checks, budgeting, and banking.

Students read real books. Unabridged, whole, and chosen because they are worth a child's time.

Kindergarten starts with Beatrix Potter, Winnie the Pooh, and Paddington. By 6th grade students are reading Little Women, A Christmas Carol, The Call of the Wild, and Anne of Green Gables. Along the way come Charlotte's Web, The Secret Garden, Where the Red Fern Grows, Johnny Tremain, and dozens more. A student who is with us from Kindergarten through 6th grade will read roughly seventy five classic works.

Reading is done in groups matched to each child's level, so a student who is ready for harder books gets them.

Science in the grammar years is about observation, wonder, and getting your hands into things. Kindergarten studies the world around them. Our combination classrooms rotate through birds and insects, dinosaurs and geology, habitats and animal homes, the physical sciences of heat, energy, electricity, magnetism, sound and light, then life science and earth science.

We teach science as the study of what God made, which is not a limitation on inquiry but a reason for it. Careful observation of the natural world is one of the oldest ways of paying attention to the Creator.

Every grade sings its way through the world map. Geography Songs covers continents, oceans, countries, states, and regions through thirty four songs, and students trace, label, and color the corresponding maps as they go. From 1st grade forward students also work through Maps, Charts and Graphs, learning to read and interpret geographic information rather than only locate places.

Students learn hymns for chapel and prepare together for the Christmas concert, which is one of the fuller expressions of the school as a whole community.

All grades have regular physical education.