Mrs. Kelly Gardner serves as Assistant Dean of Lower School. Mrs. Gardner graduated from East Carolina University with a degree in Elementary Education and holds a Master’s Certification from ACCS. She has over fifteen years of teaching experience, including teaching Fourth Grade at CCS and short-term in Kenya and Vietnam. She and her husband, Bob, have two children who attend CCS.

Attending with Interest: The Trivium

A teacher was telling me about her class’s enthusiasm for learning. She said, “I announced it was time to classify a sentence, and the students responded with, ‘Yay!!!’ and ‘Hooray!’” New teachers to our school remark how extraordinary it is that the students genuinely love being in school and enjoy learning. It is my experience…

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Where is God at School?

When I was a child, I learned about God at church and in Sunday school. My parents talked about Jesus (“He’s the reason for the season!”), and my family always said a blessing before eating a meal. It was clear God was at church and at home. When I was at school, God’s name was…

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A Rich Heritage

As part of our history unit on immigration, fourth graders learn about what brought people to America and the rich heritage of our country.  This unit integrates history with reading, writing, research, family traditions, and a biblical worldview. We see how God in his sovereignty has delivered families through trials and circumstances to bring them…

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Timeless Curriculum in a Technological World

The Smyrski Family shares with fourth graders about congenital heart defects. The interactive whiteboard displays a diagram of the heart and X-rays from their own son’s surgery. As a classical school, we understand the benefits of utilizing the timeless methods proposed by Dorothy Sayers and the Trivium. Though our approach is classical, it is not antiquated. …

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