The Grammar School
The ACA Grammar School exists to equip students with foundational knowledge in all academic subjects so they can use that knowledge for higher-order learning in Logic School.
In the grammar stage (grades K-5), students learn the fundamental rules and elements of each subject. Children at this age enjoy memorization, so in these early years of their education, they learn facts: poetry; Latin vocabulary; the stories of literature and history; math facts; descriptions and functions of the human body, plants, and animals; the rules of English grammar. In short, students are eagerly absorbing the grammar, or foundational knowledge, for the next stage of their education.
As the first stage of the Trivium (Latin for "where three roads or rivers meet"), the Grammar stage of learning aligns with young students' desire for concrete information. Students in grades K-5 learn through memorization, songs, chants, jingles, poems, stories, and repeated practice and application of information. Because young students are not yet able to think abstractly, the Grammar stage gives them the kind of information they like and seek: the "grammar" of every subject, the key information a child needs to later have facility with knowledge and use it well. For example, the grammar of geography is the names of the countries of Europe and where to place them on a map; later, in the Logic and Rhetoric phases of the Trivium, students explore why nations' borders exist as they do today. In another example, students must learn the basic operations in math and have facility with facts, operations, place value, and numeracy before they move into algebra, geometry, and calculus later in their academic careers.
In Grammar school, we teach that all truth is God's truth, and we regularly help students identify and name the nature and character of God as it is revealed in the world He gave us to learn and to serve.
OUR CURRICULUM
