First through Eighth Grade Core Curriculum
The curriculum at Mary Queen of Apostles School is aligned to the Pennsylvania State Standards and the Diocese of Greensburg curriculum guides. Children have core subjects of religion, mathematics, language arts, science, and social studies. The language arts program consists of reading, English, vocabulary, spelling, writing, and in the primary grades, phonics.
Special classes considered part of the core curriculum include art, music, computer, health, physical education, Italian, and for the primary and intermediate grades, library.
Faith Formation at MQA
Daily religion classes are based on the text Spirit of Truth. The classes include prayer, Catholic teaching, scripture, religious art, and sacred traditions. Sophia Institute creates interactive media for classroom use. Students are immersed in prayerful experiences such as daily prayer, the Holy Rosary, Stations of the Cross, and Feast Days. Mass is celebrated weekly with students actively participating. At the Greenwald Site students serve as sacristans, altar servers, readers, and cantors. Service is an important part of the faith journey. Being good stewards of the blessings bestowed on each of us by sharing our time, talent and treasure with others is an important part of living our faith.
The Arts at MQA
Fine Arts at Mary Queen of Apostles include a weekly art class for students in kindergarten through eighth grade; a weekly general music class for those in kindergarten through fifth grade; a weekly liturgical music class for K-8; general music or chorus for sixth graders; and an option for music credit in grades seventh and eighth by selecting chorus or music exploration. MQA also offers free instrumental lessons for students in fourth through eighth grades. MQA has an excellent band program that meets during the school day. Two extra-curricular options are forensics, or public speaking, and fall musical.
STEM & Computer
Mary Queen of Apostles School offers special programs to students in kindergarten through eighth grade connected to the curriculum. The programs are meant to develop interests, build problem solving and collaboration, integrate science, technology, engineering, art, and math, and build on student strengths.
Students in K-8 have a weekly computer class that provides opportunities to learn applications and use them in projects and classwork. They also have lessons in computer science curriculum each year.
A pre-engineering program is part of the science curriculum for students in grades six, seven, and eight. The middle school program includes computer aided drafting to create blueprints for projects and 3D printing, design and programming VEX robotics, and digital electronics.
Students in grades K-6 have a weekly STEM class and challenges of varying degree and interest. They are also coding using hands-on activities that promote the process, logic, and sequence of thinking a puzzle through multiple iterations. They use BeeBots, Puzzlets, Dash, Lego We Do, K’nex, Lego Spike Prime, Ozobots, Cubelets, and Vex.
Four-year preschool offers a makerspace day each month to explore thinking and creating with BeeBots, Dash, Ramps and Balls, Wind Tunnels, and other building and coding systems.
Rounding out the STEM curriculum component, MQA offers students extra-curricular opportunities to participate and compete in Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science, Pittsburgh Regional Science and Engineering Fair, and First Lego League Robotics.
Humanities at MQA
Students in kindergarten through eighth grade learn how to research, write, create projects, and present them. Students also work collaboratively and in cross-curricular content areas to learn and share and present. Performances are used to demonstrate understanding. Student books are created. Student museums are used to share information. Posters and dioramas are created to share and present learning.
Students in grades seven and eight are required to select a topic in history, research and write about it, and create a project as part of the Social Studies and English curriculum.
MQA also has a Forensics Competition Team and a Reading Team that competes in the Diocese of Greensburg Reading Competition. Students many also represent MQA in the Spelling Bee.
