Lower School

Pre-kindergarten is a time of exciting learning through exploration and play at All Saints'. Students begin building the foundation to become lifelong learners through a balance of play-based and structured activities with nurturing teachers who see each child as an individual. Through project-based learning, a balance of student and teacher-directed instruction is used, promoting a sense of student empowerment from an early age. Early literacy skills are fostered through exposure to the Wilson Fundations curriculum used in kindergarten through second grade. Students participate in a robust specials program, including PE, art, music, life skills, religion, and library and enjoy plenty of outdoor time and brain breaks on the playground and other spaces around campus.

First grade students dive deeper into language arts through continued work with the Wilson Fundations curriculum and a variety of multi-sensory activities. Reading comprehension is emphasized during guided reading. Through Being A Writer, a literacy-based curriculum, students begin to use reading to generate ideas and are introduced into the process of editing and rewriting. Writing activities include stories, poems, journal writing, and an in-depth cross-curricular research project focused on an animal. The iReady Math program continues to build understanding and strategy about the process and thinking around introductory mathematical concepts. 

Second grade is a year of expansion and change. Paper planners are introduced to begin fostering a sense of accountability as students become less dependent upon teachers and more independent workers. Executive functioning skills are introduced as students begin learning to prioritize tasks and discuss homework with their parents. In language arts, there is a shift from learning to read to reading to learn. Small group instruction is used to provide differentiated support and focus on each child's specific needs. Reading comprehension skills such as making connections, asking and answering questions, visualizing, inferring, and transforming are taught through whole group activities and applied throughout each day. iReady Math introduces a hard-copy workbook along with an accompanying app with a learning path specific to each child's needs. Greater emphasis is placed on social studies as students complete a heritage and state project.

In third grade, students continue to develop their fluency in oral and silent reading as they transition to a reading workshop model through a mix of whole group and small group instruction. They are introduced to research, and writing assignments include book reports, opinion pieces, personal narratives, and poems.  Math skills continue to build on the foundation of basic concepts established in the previous years. Using larger numbers, students practice addition, subtraction, and multiplication. Algebraic thinking is integrated into the curriculum by exploring relationships among quantities and the ways in which they change relative to one another. In social studies, students explore the economy, natural resources, climate, vegetation, and land use of different regions in the United States, including a detailed study of Arizona. Using a variety of globes and maps, they discover the unique features of landforms as they continue to develop mapping skills. In science, units of study include structures of life, sound, water, and measurement. Students are encouraged to question, investigate, and hypothesize while participating in hands-on projects designed to encourage the scientific process of experimentation and observation.

Fourth-grade students at All Saints' are the leaders of the Lower School. As students embark on their last year in lower school, they learn new skills to prepare for the transition to middle school. Students explore language arts through whole group discussion, literature circles, and work with first-grade reading buddies. Fourth-grade math begins the transition between arithmetic and pre-algebra. Students work on number relationships such as fractions, decimals, and percents. Increasingly sophisticated word problems require more thoughtful problem-solving strategies. Students in fourth grade receive science instruction in a lab setting twice a week. The scientific process of experimentation and observation continues to be the focus. Students learn how to use compound and stereo microscopes and study the metric system. Topics encompass life science, physical science, and earth science.