3rd – 5th Grade Class

Shurley English is a curriculum championed in classical schools for excellence in grammar instruction. Third and fourth grade students learn the parts of speech and proper sentence structure through jingles, chants, and application of a question-answer flow to classifying sentences. Fifth grade students transition to Warriner’s Handbook (Level 1) and apply grammar skills to sentence diagramming, more complex sentence patterns, and the use of proper writing conventions (spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation) in their own work.

We follow a classical approach to teaching writing, using the Institute for Excellence in Writing. Students are carefully guided through the writing process and learn to manipulate language to craft well-written pieces. Writing is focused on crafting narrative, descriptive, and expository pieces.

Zaner-Bloser manuscript and cursive is practiced with formal handwriting instruction and applied through spelling practice and written assignments.

Saxon is a spiraling curriculum that provides our students opportunities to master material over time with many opportunities to review and build on concepts.

We believe that God is the author of all truth and that we are instructed to hide His word in our hearts. Students sing, memorize scripture, and learn the basic grammar of the Bible. The narrative of scripture is captured through intentional instruction, scripture reading, and discussion.

Story of the World forms the foundation of historical studies at Trinity. History is God’s story and we are all part of that story.  Our students learn dates, places, people, and events of historical significance that continue to shape our world today.

God reveals himself through his creation and has created children with an innate love of the natural world around us.  We are building our program with F.O.S.S. science curriculum which is one of three recommended by the National Science Resources Center, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Smithsonian Institution as meeting their criteria for “an exemplary elementary science program.”  F.O.S.S. is an inquiry based program that allows students hands-on access to science learning in a systematic way.

Language study is an essential part of classical education, building foundations for vocabulary study, grammar, logic, and critical thinking.  According to Dorothy Sayers, author of The Lost Tools of Learning, “even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin cuts down the labor and pains of learning almost any other subject by at least fifty percent.”

All students also participate in art, music, and P.E.