St. Joseph Catholic School offers the following daily specials in addition to our core curriculum.
Physical Education is a combination of health, nutrition, and fitness activities offered one to two times a week. Students engage in team building activities, learn a variety of sports, and learn how to respect others on the playground.
Our students are exposed to the Spanish language twice a week in grades Alpha K – 4, and three to four times a week in Grades 6-8. Our students are given opportunities to practice vocabulary, conversation, and culture so that they have a foundation for high school Spanish study.
Visual Arts is designed to enable students to achieve visual arts literacy and develop technical artistic skills. Students engaging in the artistic process learn by solving problems, exhibiting their work, and thinking critically about it; then, they continue the process by relating other ideas, contexts, and meanings to their own as they refine their future work to a more sophisticated level.
At St. Joseph Catholic School, all students benefit from having music class twice a week, enhancing their academic and emotional development. Students in grades AK-2 participate in general music classes, learning music fundamentals such as solfege, beat, and rhythm. Fun games and songs are used to solidify these concepts. Third grade students further their musical knowledge, learning the recorder, note reading and finger placement. In fourth grade, our students have the opportunity to learn the ukulele, further enhancing their note and rhythm reading ability, as well as learning how to strum chords and sing songs simultaneously. During grades 5-8 our students participate in a concert band, choosing a woodwind, brass, or percussion instrument to specialize in. Here, the students continue to learn the importance of being part of a musical team, the importance of intrinsic motivation in regards to their practicing, while further enhancing their note and rhythm reading abilities as well as furthering their expertise on their particular instrument.
Technology instruction is embedded in every subject and is spearheaded by our homeroom teachers. Students in Grades 1-8 have a 1:1 student to i-Pad ratio, while our Alpha K and K students occasionally use technology but focus mainly on developing fine and gross motor skills. Our Digital Citizenship program from Common Sense Media addresses timely topics and prepares students to take ownership of their digital lives. Topics include media balance and well being, privacy and security, digital footprint, online communication, and media literacy.