Elementary

The Elementary classrooms provide an emotionally supportive environment for each child. Our top priorities are to earn the students' trust, improve their self-confidence, and help them develop appropriate interactions with teachers and peers. By building a strong foundation of trust and increasing student self-esteem in an environment that is secure and positive, we find students are much more willing to take on difficult academic tasks without hesitation. The low student-teacher ratio allows teachers to provide the support each student needs to develop socially, emotionally, and academically.

 

MORNING HOMEROOM

The purpose of the morning homeroom is to give the students the opportunity to transition to school in a relaxed yet productive manner. It presents a unique opportunity for students to develop social skills through play and daily kinesthetic activities. We strive to get each child’s “engine” ready for learning. The following activities are utilized during our morning homeroom session

  • Fine Motor Activities such as play dough, putty, coloring, and cutting
  • Sensory-motor activities such as yoga, Brain Gym, trampoline, spinning board ("astronaut board"), and deep pressure machine ("the steam roller"). For more information about why these activities are beneficial, please see our research page.
  • Calendar time is used to reinforce concepts such as time (days, months), patterns, counting, skip counting, and place value.
  • The Alert Program is used to help children identify their own level of sensory arousal, judge if it is appropriate to their current environment, and how to make adjustments when necessary.

 

READING & LANGUAGE ARTS

We integrate multi-sensory activities and engaging educational games with educational programs including

  • Decoding/Spelling
    • Orton Gillingham
    • Primary Phonics
    • Dolch Sight Words
    • Spelling City (online program in which we enter grade-level spelling lists)
  • Reading with Comprehension
    • Wilson
    • Visualizing & Verbalizing
    • Edmark
    • Evan Moore
    • Reading A to Z and RAZ Kids (online companion to Reading A to Z)
    • SRA
    • Explode the Code
    • Starting Comprehension
    • Open Court
    • Book and Article Reports
  • Writing/Vocabulary
    • Writing Workshop
    • I Can Write Online
    • I Can Write
    • Wordly Wise
    • Just Write
  • Handwriting
    • Handwriting Without Tears
  • Typing
    • Learn to Type
    • Type to Learn and Type to Learn Jr.

Once a child's ability to decode reaches a certain level, they move into reading novels. This move allows us to continue to build on basic comprehension as well as introduce inferences, predictions, and summaries. Students also further vocabulary development through novel-specific crossword puzzles and word bingo as well as dictionary use.

 

MATH

Our Elementary math curriculum is based on hands on, experiential learning. New concepts are taught and reinforced using math manipulatives and games. Once concepts are understood, they are reinforced with paper and pencil. Some of the curriculum resources we use include

 

SOCIAL STUDIES & SCIENCE:
Social Studies and Science are taught in larger groups in order to give the children experience with this type of learning environment. We use grade level curriculum for each homeroom that is developmentally appropriate. The curriculum is reinforced with reading and experiential learning activities. Some of the topics include

  • Map Skills
  • States & Countries
  • Holidays
  • Important People in History
  • Earth Science
  • Physical Science
  • Life Science

 

SOCIAL SKILLS & REWARDS:

Social Skills are a vital part of our formal and informal curriculum. While we take time to teach and reinforce topics such as manners, friendship, sportsmanship, altruism, and helping others, we take time throughout the day to respond to situations as they arise. Given the low student-teacher ratio, there is always one staff member available to discuss difficulties and role play appropriate responses as necessary. We find this balance gives our students the lessons and opportunities to learn and internalize the skills necessary to be positive and productive members of society.

We utilize positive reinforcement when we see students acting as positive members of our school community. Students are awarded pennies when they demonstrating positive behaviors such as being helpful, kind, or showing respect to a staff member or other student. These pennies are then spent at the school store, which reinforces the positive behaviors that will help them become positive members of the broader community.

 

HOMEWORK:
Homework is used to reinforce academics students have been learning at school. It is a confidence builder in that it is somethign the child should be able to do independently and feel proud to show their parents what they can do.

 

Watch Video: Multi-Sensory Spelling Lesson

Watch Video: Peer Reading, Handwriting without Tears, Math Group



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