Lower School
Our Lower School provides a learning environment that focuses on each child as an individual …a caring environment in which the teacher adapts what she is teaching in her classroom to the changing needs of each of her students. Our Lower School, starting with three-year-olds in pre-kindergarten, offers a child-centered education. Our curriculum is sequential – each lesson builds on what your child already knows. Your child receives new material when he is ready for it.
Our teachers use age-appropriate materials and a variety of teaching strategies to help your child master each tiny step in his education. Our focus is the whole child – as an academic, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual person.
A Warm and Great Learning Environment
Your child will flourish at a school in which he feels loved and valued. We provide meaningful and challenging opportunities to learn in a nurturing and safe environment. Our teachers know their students well and know what each child needs to feel good about himself and to succeed.
Your child’s study of language, reading, mathematics, science, and social studies in the Lower School is enriched with art, music, Spanish, library, technology, and physical education. Students are taught about respecting themselves, their classmates, and others. Guidance counselors stress character education and offer a flexible program to address the real needs of a particular child or class. Pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade teachers have an aide in their classroom to help them address individual learning.
Our Lower School provides the building blocks for your child to be successful in our Middle School, a transition to the college-preparatory curriculum in our Upper School. The following are a few of the many reasons:
• USJ offers a solid academic program beginning with Cubs, these three-year-olds are exposed to a broad literacy-based program that builds a foundation for reading, spelling, grammar, and writing skills. A good structured mathematics program also is introduced at this level. These little ones are building skills that will give them a solid foundation for all of the learning that will be introduced at the next levels. The best part is that it is fun and age-appropriate; the children think they are just playing, but playing is part of the learning process.
• The character education program throughout the Lower School helps students develop skills for everyday living and the character and integrity to be good citizens.
• Computer classes begin in first grade. Our computer lab is equipped with 25 student computers and a full-time computer teacher.
• Each child in junior kindergarten to fifth grade participates in a musical production every year and enjoys a well-rounded, basic music education.
• Physical education classes are offered in each grade, Cubs-5th grade.
• Foreign language classes begin with the Cubs. Spanish is taught in Cubs through second grade, with a semester of French added in third and fourth grades. Fifth grade students participate in a “Passport Program” in which a quarter of Japanese, French, German, and Spanish are taught as foreign language with the cultures of those regions being studied in social studies.
• The science curriculum is enhanced by a hands-on science lab offered to students in kindergarten through fifth grade.
• All Lower School students have art class each week. The school is beautifully decorated with student artwork. The “Bruins Art Gallery” features student artists each quarter with a reception held to honor these talented students.
• The Lower School library is an active and exciting center in our school. Weekly library classes are offered at each grade level. Students also have an opportunity to check out books at “Open Library” each morning and afternoon. The library also is open one day each week in the summer with a story time and an opportunity to check out books.
Add to all of the above a strong and highly qualified faculty, and it is clear that USJ's program is unequaled in the Jackson area. The teamwork between home and school lays a strong foundation that can only lead to success for our students.
A Closer Look at Cubs, Jr. Kindergarten
By Beth Hudson, Lower School Assistant Director
USJ has a developmentally appropriate preschool where children learn through watching, listening, and exploring in their environment. That environment is rich in hands-on, engaging, and meaningful activities.
Our children learn how to ask and answer questions as they learn more about the familiar and the unfamiliar topics through science and social studies units. The excitement this year comes from a new curriculum in both literacy and in math. These programs help to expose students to more reading, writing, and hands-on math in a fun and non-threatening way. This, in turn, helps to create that desire to learn more.
The Wright Group’s series Focus on Pre-phonics and Sadlier-Oxford’s Emergent Reading Library is used in the literacy program. The children are taught pre-reading skills through phonics, phonemic awareness, and print awareness. Multi-level skills are taught in whole groups by using morning messages, big books, and charts. Individual needs are met in small groups and one-on-one with the teachers and teaching assistants. The children are also learning how to write in personal journals through pictures and inventive spelling.
Wright Group’s Growing with Mathematics is our source for math. It has been researched and recognized by the National Council of Teachers of Math Principles and Standards, National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education. The lessons are designed to develop number sense and computational fluency as students explore a range of strategies for problem solving. The program is carefully sequenced using a developmental approach accompanied by a wide range of hands-on learning experiences.
Concepts are introduced in a large group setting through calendar activities, direct lessons, and everyday routines. Many of those activities include counting, sorting, graphing, and learning about patterns. Small groups, learning centers, and one-on-one instruction help each individual student to practice and improve his/her mathematical skills.
The teachers are able to skillfully weave in academic goals and objectives as they build on what the children can do, as well as challenge them to try new things. The children are encouraged to contribute their own ideas, use their problem-solving strategies, and pursue their own interests. The way our students learn may look like play, but it is play with a purpose. Thank you, ASG, for funding these new materials.
Teacher explains merits of block play
By Star Mansfield, Bruins Cub teacher
The hardwood unit blocks you see in our classroom are one of the most valuable learning materials we have. They come in exact sizes and shapes. For this reason, when children build with blocks they learn math concepts, such as the number of blocks that fill a certain space. They compare the height of their buildings and learn about geometric shapes ( triangles, squares, and rectangles). When they lift, shove, stack, and move blocks, they explore weight and size.
Each time they use blocks, children are making decisions about how to build a structure or solve a construction problem. Children often use blocks to recreate the world around them – a road, a house, the zoo. They work together and learn to cooperate and make friends.
We encourage children to talk about what they are doing to promote language development. We also talk with children and ask questions to expand on their block play. For example, we might say: “I see you built a tall apartment house. How do the people get to their floor? Where do people park their cars when they come to visit the shopping center? Would you like to make a sign for your building?”
These questions and comments make children more aware of what they are doing and encourage them to try out new ideas.
You can encourage your child through block play by taking an interest in what he or she does at our program. Come spend time in our Block Area to see your child building and caring for blocks. When you take a walk in your neighborhood, point out roads and interesting buildings.
You may want to purchase table blocks, colored wooden cube blocks, or cardboard brick blocks to have at home. You also can make a set out of milk cartons, which come in different sizes. Store them in shoe boxes or plastic tubs and containers and put a picture and written label on the container so your child knows where these materials belong. Identify a place where your child can build and play with blocks safely. Props such as clothespins, small plastic animals, and cars and trucks will extend your child’s play and inspire new ideas. The settings your child creates can be used for pretend play as well.
