Specialist

Everyone plays at St. Matthew’s! Children need an opportunity to succeed in PE without emphasis placed on competition.

A healthy, active child is more likely to be academically motivated, alert, and successful. Our PE program provides instruction and reinforces positive student social interactions, general gross motor skill development, and sport-specific skill building. Games and lessons are adjusted to the appropriate developmental level of the children at each grade. 

The library is an exciting space, inviting students to develop an appreciation for literature and stretch their imaginations.

As students grow as readers, they are introduced to a variety of topics, including story creation, dictionaries and thesauruses, poetry and creating fables. Our librarian collaborates with classroom teachers and works to build a high-interest collection that will develop life-long readers and users of the library.

Lower school Spanish instruction is designed to offer students a positive world language experience and develop language acquisition.

Students develop a foundational level of language through stories, songs, games, role-play, repetition, and art projects. As a result, students acquire the vocabulary and context for real language use—not just memorization of vocabulary.

Spanish for Native/Heritage Speakers: For native speakers, we provide an evaluation of each of their individual needs so that curriculum is centered on instructional goals focusing on grammar, reading, writing, vocabulary development, speaking and culture. Many students are partially bilingual and there is a range in their language skills. Native/heritage students will develop strategic Spanish reading skills, while investigating short stories and poetry. Students will produce writing in various formats and genres including well-developed sentences, paragraphs, literary responses, and short stories, while continuing to develop skills in the correct use of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization.