Mathematics

Mathematics allows us to discern the order and design of God’s creation. Along with reading, it is a primary focus of the Lower School program. In the early grades, students acquire a sound grasp of basic arithmetic facts and an automatic fluency with fundamental arithmetic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). A variety of instructional methods—memorization, use of manipulatives, visual instruction plans—are used to help students master a wide variety of specific skills and develop rapid recall and application of these skills. Through incremental review, guided practice, and systematic application of problem-solving techniques, students learn to apply the same concept or operation to increasingly sophisticated problems and learn to approach problems from a variety of angles. Students have opportunities to apply math across the curriculum, whether to identify the various geometric shapes of a scarecrow’s eyes in Kindergarten, construct a timeline in third grade world history, or produce bar and line graphs for a fifth grade weather unit.