Borculo Christian School Mission
3-School
- Encouraging the understanding of God’s love in our lives and in our world.
- Observing, investigating, seeking, and acquiring information about God’s creation.
- Learning to work and play harmoniously with others, including learning to respect the rights and property of others and developing self-discipline and self-control
- Learning to follow simple instructions
- Learning to complete tasks for self-fulfillment
- Developing creativity through the use of toys, music, reading, and art
- Building communication skills so that children can express themselves freely and communicate thoughts clearly
- Challenging each child to use thought processes and reasoning abilities
- Learn to separate from parents.
- Improve both small motor and large motor skills.
The teachers will take each child where he/she is and offer opportunities to meet a reasonable challenge socially, intellectually, and spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
4-School
Welcome to 4-School!
Borculo Christian’s 4-School provides a loving Christian atmosphere where children can grow spiritually, socially, emotionally, mentally and physically. We welcome all children and celebrate each child’s gifts and talents!
Our focus for each child is to explore curiosity, develop a sense of wonder, excitement and appreciation for God’s creation. Students are encouraged in positive self-image, problem-solving strategies and developing communication skills. Students will learn to express artistic creativity through free art opportunities. We offer a challenging and differentiated curriculum with hands-on enrichment opportunities.
Each week, we will have a theme, focused Bible story, memory verse, while building letter recognition, learning letter sounds, and mathematical skills.
The 4-School students adventure outside the classroom to explore, investigate and observe God’s world around them. This includes nature hikes, outdoor learning activities, and field trips.
These early education years are incredibly significant! Through a partnership between families and the school, it is our goal to lay a solid learning foundation for your child’s life.
Pre-Kindergarten
Welcome to Pre-Kindergarten!
Our classroom focuses on building an atmosphere of Christian love and acceptance that will enable students to achieve.
Pre-K students will be exposed to good school habits throughout the school year. Some of these positive habits are being organized, working well with others in groups, having good listening skills, following directions, treating others with love and respect, being a problem solver and becoming a self-starter.
We use the Christian School International Pre-K Bible curriculum. Students will sing songs, do crafts, role play and retell through drama. They will also memorize a Bible verse each month.
Pre-K students will be introduced to the sounds and symbols of the alphabet using the Zoo Phonics Curriculum.
Pre-K students work with numerous math concepts. We play a lot of math games, work with many manipulatives and complete group and individual activities to accomplish our learning goals!
Students will participate in Art, Library, Music and Physical Education, which enriches their learning.
Pre-K students adventure outside the classroom to explore, investigate and observe God’s world around them through field trips.
3 and 5-Day Kindergarten
Kindergarten is a wonderful year in which we are training children to become students and individuals with the purpose of glorifying the King!
In Kindergarten, we establish school and classroom routines. We focus on classroom procedures and expectations, which sets the foundation for their learning career. This is the year students are adjusting to attending school all day.
At Borculo Christian, we understand that some students are not developmentally ready to hit learning five-full days a week, so we are very blessed also to offer a three-full day option as well! Both classes teach to the Michigan State Standards.
We value each of the subject areas and enjoy weaving Jesus into our everyday learning. In the field of Language Arts, we focus on phonics, sight words, penmanship, writing, reading, and speaking. In Math, we focus on numeration, geometry, measurement, patterns, operations, and graphs. Some Science topics that we introduce include weather and the four seasons, the needs of plants and animals, forces, machines, and engineering. Some Social Studies topics that we introduce throughout the year include maps, timelines, myself, the space around me, needs and wants, and getting along with others.
Daily, we spend time reading and discussing a devotional that is intentional in introducing who God is and our desperate need for Him as our Savior. During Bible, we walk from creation through several Old Testament stories learning the importance of obedience and how has God remained faithful. During the holidays, we continue by sharing the true meaning of the season.
First Grade
Welcome to 1st grade!
First Grade is a big year- socially, academically, and spiritually. It is a year spent becoming more independent, learning to read, and understanding what it means to be a child of God.
Our language curriculum focuses mainly on phonemic awareness, phonics skills, and sight words, which are essential building blocks that help us become better readers! We also work hard to strengthen our writing, vocabulary, and grammar skills. In math, we further develop our number sense- understanding place value, composing and decomposing numbers, and building fluency with addition and subtraction facts. Beyond that, we spend time learning about attributes of shapes, telling time, and comparing data. In Science and Social Studies, we use engaging hands-on lessons to discover more about the world around us.
Most importantly, our Bible time is spent immersed in stories about God’s faithfulness. We learn about God fulfilling his promises through the life and death of Jesus and what that means for us as broken people. The best part is the time we spend memorizing scripture and sharing how we see God working in our lives.
First Grade is such a special time in your child’s education where we will cultivate not only a rigorous learning environment, but also an atmosphere of grace, truth, and love!
Second Grade
Second Grade at Borculo Christian is a lot of fun as we grow as learners and individuals!
Throughout our year together, we will keep a focus on our school theme and look for the Christian perspective in all of our lessons.
Our language curriculum focuses on phonics skills, reading fluency, and comprehension of texts. As we work on those skill areas, we also work on strengthening our writing and vocabulary. In math, we start the year with addition and subtraction within 20. We also address place value, measurement, time, and geometry. Second graders work hard to build their math fact fluency during our daily practice times. In science and social studies, we can learn about God’s world through a variety of different studies! Some of those include properties of matter, geography, civics and governance, and economics.
During Bible, we briefly review the Old Testament and then discuss the New Testament and the promise of a Messiah. Our year together concludes with a study of how Jesus’ followers respond to their salvation in Christ. Students are challenged to respond faithfully, like Peter and Paul, to Christ’s saving work.
Third Grade
Children in third grade are ready for more responsibility! They are much more independent and are prepared for a more structured classroom. Previously, children were learning to read, but in third grade, we are reading to learn!
Many new ideas are introduced in classes this year. In ELA, students begin seeing themselves as readers and writers through workshop times each day. We even learn cursive! In math, third graders will cover significant concepts such as problem solving, multiplication and division, measurement, and geometry. Social studies bring about a fun field trip–to the State Capitol after we learn about Michigan’s history, people past and present, and the government of Michigan. Science topics include animal survival traits, forces and motion, weather and climate, and life cycles of plants.
In Bible, we focus on the study of God and His people. Working our way from Genesis through Judges, we describe the way God loves His people and His concern for them. All these stories point to the need for Jesus!
Fourth Grade
Fourth grade is an exciting year!
As our minds develop more abstract reasoning ability, we can take the knowledge and the skills that we have developed in the previous grades and apply them in new and creative ways to what we are learning. We begin to use our reading skills to learn rather than learning to read. We are becoming fluent, avid readers. We connect our reading and writing skills by learning to respond in writing to things we have read. We also develop as writers by writing numerous stories, poems, and opinion pieces. Our understanding of how to write includes learning how to apply grammar rules, standard spelling, and exciting vocabulary. In math, we develop knowledge and fluency with multi-digit addition, subtraction, and multiplication, as well as learning about division, equations, word problems, measurement, fractions, and geometry. Bible curriculum in 4th grade includes developing our understanding of the Old Testament timeline from Creation through Elijah. We learn how God is faithful and that He brings us joy in all circumstances. Our Science investigations include hands-on experiences to enhance our understanding of God’s word as we study the earth, energy transfers, waves, and the structures and functions of organisms. In Social Studies, we explore how Michigan connects to the rest of the U.S. and the world by looking at how to describe its location and characteristics, how and why it is a part of different regions, how and why it is affected by various waves of migration and immigration, and how humans interact with the environment. We spend time building our understanding of economics, the U.S. political structure, and the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
At BCS, we study these things through the lens of God’s love and care for his world and what our response to that love should be.
Fifth Grade
Welcome to fifth grade!
During the fifth grade year, we will continue to develop skills that will prepare your students for middle school. By the end of the year, fifth-grade students will become more independent, responsible learners who can think abstractly. In math, students will focus heavily on fractions such as addition and subtraction and multiplication and division of fractions. Students will also be proficient in using the four math operations. They will be able to handle essential algebraic functions such as exponents and order of operations. They will be able to use various methods of measurement with skill and understand data and analyze it. Fifth-grade social studies focus on the history of the Western Hemisphere studying mostly the events in the United States. The focus will be on the earliest people all the way to the Civil War, and will also include an understanding of how our government is set up. In science, we focus on many different topics, including a study of insects, weather, all body systems, and matter. Our English Language Arts class is a readers and writers workshop. Students will read many different books from different genres, gaining an understanding of what interests they lean towards. Fifth graders write a lot. Each month students will write a Readers Response Letter on books that they have just finished reading. We also write persuasive essays, personal narratives, and descriptive essays throughout the year.
Fifth-grade Bible students learn how God interacted with people in biblical times. They begin to understand the character and nature of God as revealed to us in creation, Scriptures, and in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Middle School Bible
Our middle school Bible curriculum is based on the Christian School International “Walking with God and His Peoples” series. It is important to recognize that while “Bible” is a subject, God is present in all we do here at BCS – in what we teach, how we teach, and in the way in which we guide our students in their faith walk. We work hard to develop relationships with students so that we can walk alongside them as their relationship with Christ grows. Memorization of Bible passages is an important part of our Bible curriculum as we strive to help students grow and mature as Christian people.
The sixth grade curriculum starts with an Old Testament review focused on the need for and plan of salvation. Students draw connections between the Old Testament and the New Testament through a detailed study of Jesus’ ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension. Students also take a closer look at Paul’s missionary journeys, learning how God’s gift of salvation was extended to the Gentiles and spread throughout the world. In addition, students gain insights into how to share the gospel message through the examples of Peter, Paul, and others, and increase their understanding of how everyday people are used to build God’s kingdom.
The seventh grade curriculum uses a thematic approach. Concentrating on the Old Testament, the units focus on such topics as God’s covenant and his promise of a Savior. The unit on the feasts of Israel helps students make connections between the feasts and the work of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. There are also units on Job and Ecclesiastes. Studying Proverbs gives students practical guidelines for how they are to live as God’s children, and with the study of the prophets gives students a personalized look at God’s characteristics and the promises he made to Israel. In the unit on prayer, students learn more about God’s gift of prayer, and how to use it to build their relationships with God.
Students in eighth grade will continue the thematic approach to studying the Bible, beginning with the birth of Jesus and continuing through his early ministry, death, and resurrection. A unit on New Testament writings gives students an opportunity to note the various challenges facing the New Testament churches and compare them with today’s challenges. In a unit on personal devotions, students discover how a meaningful devotional habit strengthens their relationship with God and helps them grow in faith and obedience. Finally, students study early church history and learn what happened to the church after the conclusion of the New Testament.
Middle School ELA
In 6th grade, we focus on reading for theme, comprehension, and using contextual clues. We do explanatory, narrative, and argumentative writing. In grammar, we focus on pronouns, punctuation, multiple-meaning words, figures of speech, and denotation/connotation. We study the novels The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Cay, Monkey Island, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.
In 7th grade, we focus on reading for theme, form, and point of view. We do explanatory and argumentative writing and will write a short research paper. In grammar, we focus on phrases and clauses, sentence types, commas, and figures of speech. We study the novels My Side of the Mountain, Where the Red Fern Grows, and A Light in the Forest. We also participate in literature circles.
In 8th grade, we focus on reading for theme, central idea, and point of view. We do argumentative writing and will write a more extensive research paper. In grammar, we focus on verbals, verbs, active and passive voice, and punctuation. We participate in discussions that allow us to formulate opinions and be able to voice those in a group setting, along with responding to the views of others. We study the novels The Giver, The Hiding Place, and A Christmas Carol. We also participate in literature circles.
Throughout all of the middle school language arts, we praise God for the gift of words.
Middle School Math
Beginning in seventh grade, we offer two different tracks of math. Our traditional track builds on the Pre-Algebra concepts begun in sixth grade. Our accelerated track moves quickly through all the Pre-Algebra tracks and begins to tackle some Algebra concepts.
In 8th grade, our traditional math track finishes up the Pre-Algebra concepts and begins exposing students to some Algebra concepts. Our accelerated path is a high school level Algebra 1 class. Students who continue on to Unity Christian High School, and who maintain an 85% average in Algebra 1 in 8th grade actually earn their high school Algebra 1 credit at BCS. This allows them to jump right into Geometry as a Freshman and take a higher-level math class or A.P. class as a Senior.
Middle School Social Studies
In 7th grade, we learn Ancient Civilizations. We first learn about how to study early civilizations and some of the earliest cultures in the world. Then we learn specific details about Mesopotamia, Ancient Egypt and Kush, Ancient India, Ancient China, the Hebrews and Judaism, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, the Islamic World, Early Africa, and Japan.
In 8th grade, we study U.S. History from Colonial America to Reconstruction. We cover the years 1605-1877. The big topics we learn are The English Colonies, The American Revolution, Forming a New Government, the Constitution and Citizenship, Launching the Nation, The Jefferson Era, Forming a New National Identity, The Age of Jackson, and Westward Expansion. We then look at different aspects of the North and the South and how that ultimately led to a divided nation, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.
Throughout all of middle school social studies, we focus on how God’s hand was and is everywhere. We also study current events and look at how that affects middle school students. We pray for our leaders and the ways we can be involved in our communities.
Middle School Science
Music
PE
In PreK-2nd Grade, we will be working on basic locomotor, nonlocomotor, and manipulative skills. Students will learn how to move their bodies in space and in relation to other students around them. We will be learning the basics of throwing, catching, and kicking.
In 3rd-5th grade, we will be establishing using the skills learned in the early grades and using these skills to compete in sporting activities. Students will learn the basic rules of individual and team sports and also practice the necessary skills needed to compete in these sports. We will also focus on stretching and simple lifelong exercises. Students will keep a record of their physical activity throughout the year. Students will also be tested twice a year to help keep a record of their physical fitness progress.
In 6th-8th grade, students will review the rules of individual and team sports and also practice the skills needed to compete in these sports. They will also have written and skills tests at the end of each sports unit. We will also focus on stretching and simple lifelong exercises. Students will keep a record of their physical activity throughout the year. Students will also be tested twice a year to help keep a record of their physical fitness progress.
All students will learn how to be physically active and compete with others in a way that is glorifying to God. As 1 Timothy 4:8 says, “for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” Students will focus on having attitudes that show the Holy Spirit’s work in their lives. They will show cooperation with the teacher’s directions, rules of the games, and their teammates. All students will give their best effort to do their best in everything they do. We will be using a Physical Education class to help students to become the best version of themselves that God has made them to be.
Art
Technology
Welcome to Technology Class at Borculo Christian School!
- What? Technology class is offered to students in grades K-8, however, technology is integrated into all classrooms at BCS on a regular basis!
- Why? At BCS, technology is utilized to facilitate and enhance student learning, as well as to help them develop proficiency in the technological skills necessary for functioning and thriving in today’s digital world!
- How? Some of the basic curriculum goals for technology at BCS are:
- Basic understanding of computer operation and care.
- Digital Citizenship and ethics from a Christian perspective.
- Proper keyboarding skills.
- An understanding of the role of technology in our lives and society.
- Instruction and practice with software applications.
- Practice with digital research and information literacy.
- Developing students’ creativity, innovation, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
- Facilitating and enhancing learning in core subject areas.
Educational Support Services
Educational Support Services
Educational Support Services - ESS
Borculo Christian School offers a multi-tier system of services to students with academic, social, and behavioral/emotional difficulties. Our first level of support comes through our RtI program, which offers immediate response to learning needs. For students who need more intensive support, our Educational Support Services (ESS) takes over to provide students with the tools that they will need to be successful. We are connected to All Belong to deliver psychological testing services and consultations. We also offer Speech & Language Services, Occupational Therapy Services, and Physical Therapy services at our school through the Zeeland Public Schools.
Borculo Christian’s ESS program also provides opportunities for students with academic gifts by offering talent development options through extracurricular after-school programs.
Response to Intervention, RtI
Response to Intervention is a student support framework that:
- Creates an academic education system focusing on maximizing learning and creating success for all students
- Takes into account that each child is uniquely designed and gifted by God by providing high-quality, research-based academic instruction and intervention matched to individual student needs.
- Supports early intervening services to help prevent academic difficulties.
- Uses screening and progress monitoring data to inform decisions regarding groups’ and individual students’ educational programs.
Welcome to Technology Class!
Please click here to go to the new technology website!