About Our Curriculum
St. Mary’s School follows the curriculum guidelines set by the Diocese of Lansing. This includes Social Studies, Science, Math, Phonics, Reading and Language Arts.
We have self-contained classrooms for Kindergarten to Sixth Grade. Effort Grades are given in Kindergarten through Third Grade. Our grading scale for the upper elementary is higher than the other catholic elementary schools in the area.
Our main focus is on the three R’s. Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. At St. Mary’s/St. Stan’s our reading program is second to none. Our highly trained teachers, small group instruction in primary grades, and challenging reading series (Open Court’s Collections for Young Scholars) are the backbone of a fine program that results in high IOWA scores and success at higher levels of education. Our reading program emphasizes phonics and integrates spelling, grammar, writing and critical thinking skills. Each component is designed to develop self-motivated students who take responsibility for their own learning.
Our Reading program uses Open Court's Collection for Young Scholars. To learn more about our Reading Program.
Our Math program starts off in Kindergarten through Second grade using William H. Sadlier Math series. Then from Third to Sixth Grade we use the Silver Burdett Ginn Math series that most of our catholic schools use. We ensure that our students know the basics of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. We learned from what the Catholic Middle School needed for our students to enter their curriculum and we incorporated their suggestions into our Math curriculum.
Our Writing program correlates with the Open Court’s system. We do lots of writing from Kindergarten through Sixth Grade. In Kindergarten the students learn how to print the letters of the alphabet correctly, know what letters are consonants and vowels. First grade we introduce stories and sentence structures. From Second Grade on we expand on this by writing stories, doing reports, etc.
All our students participate in Music, Gym, Library, and Technology Lab each week.
Students have the opportunity to get involved in our school choir program (3rd-6th), band (6th), alter servers (4rd-6th), cafeteria workers (6th), and safety patrol (6th).
The students participate in Mass every week. Each grade has a Friday where they prepare for the Mass as readers, servers, cantors, etc. Once a quarter the students go to Confession (2nd-6th). During Lent the students participate in Stations of the Cross.
We have a girls and boys basketball teams for 4th – 6th grades. In grades 4th-6th, all students are required to take swimming lessons provided by the YMCA. We also have the “Arts Go To School Program” sponsored by the Ella Sharp Museum.