curriculum

Garden Hills Elementary offers a consistent, rigorous instructional program for all students. The foundation for our programs is the Georgia Standards of Excellence, required by the State Department of Education, and includes teaching Common Core standards in Math, Reading and Language Arts.

However, at Garden Hills the programs are enhanced and enriched far beyond the regular expectations. Common assessments offer us data for curriculum and instructional decisions based on our students’ needs. Our curriculum maps and academic programs ensure consistency from class to class and grade to grade.

Features of our curriculum are:

Reading

Implementation of Wilson Fundations phonics in all K-2 classrooms https://www.wilsonlanguage.com/programs/wilson-reading-system/
Complete Reading Series Methodology with Orton-Gillingham K-5 https://www.orton-gillingham.com/
STAR Reading Assessments and Accelerated Reading Program K-5
Reading A- Z in K-5 https://www.readinga-z.com/
Reading Eggs in K – 3 https://readingeggs.com/
Differentiated instruction through Guided Reading & Daily 5 Literacy Independence Model
Journeys reading series for Common Core Georgia Standards of Excellence
Theme based chapter book studies
Integration of reading into the IB Units of Inquiry

Language Arts/Writing

Journeys Grammar, Spelling, and Writing program
Introduction of the writing genres K-2 (Informational, Persuasive, Narrative, Response to Literature)
Writer’s workshop, writer’s journals/notebooks, common editing checklist, cross-curricular writing
Writing instruction provided through Daily 5 Literacy Independence Method

Mathematics

Full implementation of Eureka Math published by Great Minds https://greatminds.org/
Use of manipulatives and games as a part of the math program
I-XL for enriching, differentiated mathematics instruction https://www.ixl.com/
STAR Math Assessments
“Protected” math block – 60 minutes, minimum
Math Seeds in grades K – 1 https://mathseeds.com/
Everyday Counts Calendar Math in grades K-1

Science