Curriculum
Covenant Day School takes great joy in partnering with families to provide an excellent academic experience that educates the whole student from a biblical worldview.
Lower School
Covenant Day School takes great joy in partnering with families to provide a nurturing and excellent academic experience that educates the whole child from a biblical worldview. The lower school years are a time of building core competences in the hearts and minds of the children whom God has entrusted to our care. The lower school program is designed to provide students with a spiritually and socially balanced daily routine that fosters a love for learning in a community centered on developing young children and their unique gifts.
Bible
Lower school students learn the story of God interacting with His people and calling them to a faith in Jesus Christ through understanding of biblical themes, key passages, and text exploration. Students learn through modeling and practice to become responsible caretakers of creation and peacemakers among their peers and community.
Language Arts
A customized balanced literacy program begins at the primary levels with a multi-sensory, brain-based approach to teaching foundational skills in phonics, reading, spelling, language arts, and composition. Using a workshop approach to reading and writing, students are given direct instructional support and a variety of daily reading and writing experiences that are necessary in the complex process of becoming independent thoughtful readers and writers.
Social Studies
Students explore different communities and cultures both past and present to gain appreciation for the complexity and diversity of humankind. They learn much about their own life by contrasting life in other countries with their own. History and geography studies investigate how God acts providentially in time and place and generates examples of how humans have developed various aspects of culture.
Science
Essential concepts drawn from the fields of science are joined with hands-on experiments and problem-based learning that students can relate to in their everyday lives. Students are able to characterize that while the created world is vastly complex, it is ordered consistently reflecting God’s laws.
Mathematics
The framework for learning mathematics in the lower school years is grounded in the three-step learning process of moving from concrete to pictorial, then abstract. Students learn to master mathematical concepts at a deeper understanding level that enables them to move on to new learning levels with confidence.
World Languages
Students develop listening and conversational skills as well as cultural appreciation through games, songs, and role play. Exploring an unfamiliar culture through the study of its language invites students to emphasize and value people beyond their own experience. Spanish is taught in grades 1-5.
Fine Arts
The main focus of fine arts in the lower school is to foster creativity within the disciplines of music and art with a variety of experiences in presentation, performance, and enjoyment. Young students experience the formal principles of the disciplines and incorporate them through practice and observation.
Physical Education and Health
Students learn motor skills, fitness, eye-hand coordination, rhythm, and lead-up games to team and lifetime sports. Along with guided physical activities, students practice cooperation and leadership skills. The content of health and healthy living is specified as a way to serve God and others around us.
Middle School
Covenant Day School appreciates that middle school is a time of significant growth. Students in grades six through eight are provided a rich academic program that addresses the cognitive and spiritual development of the whole student. Positive peer-to-peer relationships are fostered trough small-group devotions with teachers serving as mentors. Our goal is to reach the heart and mind of each student with thought-provoking essential understandings leading students to independently seek after Christ.
Bible
Students build upon their knowledge of events and themes recorded within scripture so that their understanding of what the Bible teaches about God, humanity, and self is deepened. From the study of scripture, a Christian worldview for approaching every issue is developed.
Language Arts
Students interact with complex texts and read for meaning from a variety of literature that is crucial to their learning and preparation for high school and college. The writing process established in the middle school years gives students the framework to apply their skills to persuasive, informative, and narrative writing styles. Students learn to conduct cross-discipline research writing assignments to build competency of the research process and the topic under study.
Social Studies
Through the comprehensive study of history and geography of the United States and the world, students investigate how humanity has responded to God’s call to care for and unfold the earth. Students learn themes central to the concept of culture formation through the study of elements that shape cultures and countries.
Science
The content of life, earth, and physical science provides rich opportunities for students to examine the phenomena of physical and living things as part of God’s plan. Science and technology courses integrate experimentation and problem-based approaches to learning.
Mathematics
The study of mathematics in middle school intends to deepen students’ knowledge and skills and to proficiently apply these understandings to mathematical reasoning and analysis in middle school through high school and college.
World and Ancient Languages
Students study world language to develop a competency in speaking another language. Through the discipline of language study, students’ perceptions and understandings of other cultures as well as our own are enriched.
Fine Arts
A sequentially organized curriculum consists of lessons containing content of cumulative knowledge, understanding, and skills in fine arts. Students’ abilities in the arts are developed to make art, analyze, interpret, and evaluate qualities of art and how people make judgments about it and justify those judgments.
Physical and Health Education
Students acquire specific game skills and strategies, along with setting personal fitness goals and an emphasis on life sports and healthy living.
High School
High School at Covenant Day School rotates around the intentional development of the Christian mind through the pursuit of learning and application. Extensive courses in college preparatory, honors, and AP levels are offered. A well-rounded Christian education prepares students to be able to discriminate truth in ideas encountered and be able to think about current events, social issues, and one’s own motives and desires from a biblical worldview.
Bible
The study of Bible as an academic subject includes practicing methods of Bible interpretation through the study of the Old and New Testaments, understanding basic historic Christian beliefs, and analyzing various worldviews. A strong student service component complements the program with practical application of serving others.
English
Covenant Day School places an emphasis on developing advanced skills in literary analysis and writing with courses using quality literature that promotes critical reading, thinking, and writing.
Social Studies
The social studies department challenges students to examine history, events, and cultures from various perspectives in light of the Christian interpretive framework. As student historians, political, social, economic, and geographic developments are analyzed utilizing essential content knowledge and skills.
Science
The study of science provides a learning experience marked by a commitment to both scientific rigor and a greater understanding and appreciation for the order and design of God’s creation.
Mathematics
Students develop the rational thinking necessary to understand the branches of mathematics, and to use the same rational thinking across disciplines.
World and Ancient Languages
The comprehensive study of a targeted world language provides students the ability to competently communicate within the culture of a relevant and significant people group. Study of an ancient language furnishes students with a body of work that represents the universal language of the learned in ancient civilizations.
Fine Arts
Fine Arts education at Covenant Day School is an indispensable discipline in the fulfillment of developing a high school graduate who is equipped to exercise responsibility in the creative production, expression, understanding, evaluation, and response to art with respect to God, the world, others, and themselves.
Physical Education and Health
At the high school level personal health and physical fitness for life is part of the core curricula as well as developing competency in strength and performance training.