Kindergarten and Grade 1
Kindergarteners love to learn, play, sing, explore, create, and laugh! They have an insatiable appetite to new skills and concepts as they engage in thematic units that help them apply their newfound skills. A throughline in our kindergarten classrooms is developing the skills to be engaged and thoughtful members of the classroom and school community, while building character and confidence.
Grade 1 students have a zest for learning. Grade 1 is a year when we see incredible academic, social, and emotional growth. Students are guided as they build their self-awareness, develop new friendships, and become confident, curious learners. The areas of focus for students help them further their understanding of who they are, how their past connects to their present, and the impact of the choices they make. Students learn how working together can be both individually and collectively beneficial.
Curriculum Highlights
Night Magic
Night Magic
Culminating their integrated classroom unit on night time, Kindergarten students and their families always look forward to Kindergarten Night Magic, a beloved decades-long School tradition and an important part of the Kindergarten curriculum. For several weeks leading up to the Night Magic event, students research nocturnal animals, planets in the Milky Way solar system, why the day is light while the night is dark, and Spanish vocabulary that corresponds to what is learned in class. They also create a mural of the night sky inspired by Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Bee Ambassadors
Bee Ambassadors
Grade 1 students develop expertise as the School’s Bee Ambassadors. Throughout the year, students study bee-haviors and roles within the hive, and even have the opportunity for a hands-on study of honey production and harvesting at the School’s apiary. To better understand these pollinators and their world, students create anatomical representation of bees and design honeycomb mazes for their bee-shaped coding robots.
Belt It Out
Belt It Out
Students love sharing with their classmates. During the Grade 1 Belt It Out unit, each child creates a list of items that are important to them and uses their expository writing skills to describe why they chose these items to share. Students then create representational drawings of each item and attach it to an interactive velcro utility belt to display. To complete this sharing event, students choose a song that will play as they proudly wear their belt during a grade-wide fashion show where they each publicly speak, using projection of voice and clarity of articulation to showcase one of the items they had chosen.
Economics
Economics
Math materializes for our Grade 1 students as they learn about economics. Students visit area businesses and banks to learn directly from business owners as they begin to develop an understanding of concepts such as goods & services; wants & needs; and spending & saving. Students also begin to understand monetary units and concepts such as operating within a budget and counting and dividing using dollars.
Sample focus questions:
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How can I apply the necessary decoding skills that will allow me to use reading for enjoyment and to gather information?
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How can I maintain control of my body as I rotate, spring, balance, and land in gymnastics?
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How can a symbol represent the form of a piece of music?
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How do I use solfege syllables in music?
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How can different writing structures help us express our ideas, such as expository, narrative and persuasive?
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What does the night sky look like? How do artists represent stars in art?
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How can I use picture and bar graphs to understand the world around me?
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Why does the moon look different each night?
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How do you create a drawing that illustrates the different parts of a bee?
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How do I self-advocate? How do I cooperate with others?
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How do I use Spanish to describe the world around me, such as farm animals?