General Studies

Our K-4 English Language Arts (ELA) program fosters a deep love for reading, writing, and communication. Each grade has classroom libraries with books of all genres, providing students with diverse reading opportunities. Through a structured progression of literacy skills, students develop strong comprehension, fluency, vocabulary, and writing abilities. Our approach integrates guided reading, writing workshops, phonics instruction, and collaborative discussions, ensuring that students build confidence as independent readers, writers, and thinkers. Additionally, the curriculums are taught using multiple modalities, accommodating different learning styles and ensuring that every student has access to engaging, effective instruction.

ELA Progression by Grade:

• Kindergarten: Focus on foundational literacy skills, including letter recognition, phonemic awareness, and early handwriting. Students learn to follow words from left to right, recognize rhyming words, and blend and segment syllables. Early comprehension skills develop through read-alouds, storytelling, and retelling familiar stories.
• 1st Grade: Building on phonics and fluency, students learn to decode and encode words, identify vowel patterns, and recognize sight words. They begin writing complete sentences and crafting simple opinions, narrative, and informational pieces. Listening and speaking skills grow through collaborative conversations and presentations.
• 2nd Grade: Strengthening fluency and comprehension, students recount stories, describe characters and events, and compare texts. Students begin novel studies through various texts.  Writing expands to structured paragraphs, and students learn to support ideas with details. Phonics instruction introduces prefixes, suffixes, and multi-syllable words.
• 3rd Grade: Reading comprehension deepens as students analyze novels and informational texts. They refine their paragraph structure, writing opinion, informative, and narrative texts with clear organization. Speaking and listening skills develop through discussions, presentations, and research projects.
• 4th Grade: Students engage in critical reading, identifying themes, character development, and point of view. Writing includes multi-paragraph essays, research-based reports, and creative narratives. Speaking skills advance through debates, presentations, and collaborative discussions. Additionally, students participate in Genius Hour, a project-based learning experience where they independently research a topic of their choice and create a presentation to share their newfound knowledge with their peers.

Throughout all grades, students participate in phonics instruction, vocabulary development, and structured writing workshops. By fostering a growth mindset in literacy, we empower students to become confident readers, expressive writers, and effective communicators.

At Hillel Academy, our K-4 mathematics program is designed to develop problem-solving skills, mathematical fluency, and critical thinking. Using a concrete-pictorial-abstract approach, students build a deep understanding of numbers, operations, geometry, measurement, and data analysis.

Each grade level builds upon foundational skills, emphasizing number sense, computation strategies, real-world problem-solving, and mathematical reasoning. Students engage in hands-on activities, discussions, and challenges that foster confidence in math.

Math Progression by Grade:

• Kindergarten: Developing number sense to 100 (with counting and recognizing numbers up to 20), early addition and subtraction, comparing quantities, measurement, and identifying basic 2D and 3D shapes.
• 1st Grade: Expanding place value to numbers up to 120, comparing numbers, building addition and subtraction fluency within 100, exploring patterns, introduction to time and calendar, length and weight, graphs, money, and foundational geometry concepts. 
• 2nd Grade: Deepening place value understanding with numbers up to 1,000, multi-digit addition and subtraction with regrouping, bar models, introduction to multiplication and division, length, mass, time, money, shapes, and graphs and line plots.
• 3rd Grade: Mastering numbers up to 10,000, rounding and estimating, multiplication and division strategies, bar models with 4 operations, telling time, fractions as part of a whole, area and perimeter, an introduction to angles, and working with graphs and data.
• 4th Grade: Advancing to numbers up to 1,000,000, multi-digit multiplication and division, fractions and decimals, factors and multiples, measurement conversions, polygons and symmetry, area and perimeter, understanding data in tables and line graphs, angles and line segments, and complex problem-solving.

Our students learn to apply math to real-world scenarios, developing the ability to reason, communicate, and justify their thinking. We integrate STEM challenges, hands-on manipulatives, and interdisciplinary projects to help students see the relevance of math in everyday life.

Science is an interactive and inquiry-driven experience that encourages students to think critically and make real-world connections. Our elementary science program covers physical, earth, and life sciences at every grade level, fostering curiosity and problem-solving skills through hands-on experiments, engineering challenges, and cross-curricular projects.

Students engage in thematic, interdisciplinary units that align with their learning in other subjects and prepare them for our annual STEMfest, where they showcase their discoveries and innovations. We also bring it to life through our weekly science special, guest speakers, field trips, and STEM challenges that encourage students to build empathy and see the impact of science in their daily lives.

Core Science Topics by Grade:

• Kindergarten: Introduction to meteorology, animal engineers (habitat comparisons), and the role of the sun in providing solar heat to Earth.
• 1st Grade: Climate and weather patterns, bridge engineering, chemical reactions with copper pennies, states of matter, and the five senses.
• 2nd Grade: Deep dive into the solar system and planetary roles, as well as animal research and adaptations.
• 3rd Grade: The human body and its major systems, rocks and minerals, electricity, and magnetism.
• 4th Grade: Simple machines (integrated with social studies), weather research, and developing a functional compass.

By integrating science with other disciplines, we empower students to think like scientists, ask meaningful questions, and develop the skills needed to understand and impact the world around them.

Our K-4 Social Studies program is designed to build a strong sense of community, cultural awareness, and historical understanding. Students explore key concepts through interactive projects, storytelling, research, and hands-on activities that encourage them to think critically about the world around them.

Social Studies Progression by Grade:

• Kindergarten: Introduction to community helpers and how different roles contribute to society. Students learn about schools, neighborhoods, and important workers such as firefighters, doctors, and teachers through role-playing, storytelling, and classroom activities.
• 1st Grade: Exploration of American holidays and their historical significance, alongside a growth mindset curriculum that emphasizes perseverance, kindness, and responsibility as part of being a good citizen.
• 2nd Grade: A global perspective develops as students embark on a study of world cultures, traveling "Around the World" with a classroom passport. They learn about different countries, traditions, geography, and how people live in various parts of the world.
• 3rd Grade: A deep dive into U.S. geography, where students explore the 50 states by studying regions, state symbols, natural resources, and landmarks. Students engage in a simulated road trip, mapping out destinations and researching fun facts about each state.
• 4th Grade: A journey into ancient civilizations, including Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece. Students examine early societies, their contributions to government, writing, and architecture, making connections between history and modern life through hands-on projects and research.

Our Social Studies curriculum integrates literature, research, geography, and cultural studies, helping students develop a broad understanding of their community, country, and world. Through interactive learning experiences, we encourage students to ask questions, explore diverse perspectives, and think like historians.