Curriculum By Grade

Preschool

This program is geared for 3 and 4 year-old who are just beginning to explore their new world. For most, this is the first time they have been away from the safety and comfort of home and are learning how to interact socially with their peers and new authority figures. Our curriculum helps these curious learners through daily routines, sharing games and activities that require teamwork. Throughout these interaction the children learn and practice techniques for self-discipline, respect for others, personal responsibility and perseverance. Students are guided towards fluency through poetry, songs, dance, games, art and play. Our curriculum introduces every type of subject matter in a manner that is fun to these young and energetic minds and causes each child to become eager to learn more.

Pre-Kindergarten

Our Pre-Kindergarten program is for 4-year-olds who have accomplished the basics and are ready for a greater challenge. While much of the focus, classroom setting and structure are the same as the preschool program, there is a dramatic shift in the student's academics. The curriculum teaches phonics, alphabet, writing, science concepts such as weather and parts of the body, basic math with counting, sorting, geometrical shapes, spatial sense, physical fitness with coordination and balance, geography, history, art and music. These children have both the ability and aptitude to do more and understand greater detail thus our curriculum grows with them with greater challenges and expectations to push them further in their mental exploration.

Our preschool program is fun, exciting and challenging. These very young minds begin to lay the groundwork for a broad academic subject matter and the brain connections for learning a second language. For more detailed information on our preschool curriculum which is also consistent with the current position advocated by the NAEYC.

By the end of the year you will see your child's growth and will be continuously amazed that not only do they know all of these new and exciting facts but they will be able to communicate in Spanish!

Kindergarten

For many children, kindergarten is the first experience in a regular and consistent formal setting away from home. At this age they are eager, curious and ready to engage with all of the wonderful things they are about to be exposed to. This is an ideal time to offer them a broad amount of knowledge and a challenging curriculum with high expectations. Their young minds are rapidly developing; absorbing everything they see or hear from the world around them and are ready for this new challenge.

Our Kindergarten program engages our student's young minds in a wide array of subject matter and exploration. Subjects such as visual arts, music, math, science, history, geography and language arts are all part of their learning experiences. By the end of this important year our students are able to write in cursive as well as print, can count to 100 by 1's, 2's, 5's & 10's, know all 7 continents along with specific landmarks that identify each and conduct many experiments testing scientific discoveries.

First Grade

This is the year your child grows from a young and exploring mind to an inquisitive sophisticated reader. During the school year the children will read and write (upper case & lower case) all the letters of the alphabet in Spanish and English. They will read short stories and then analyze the content. They will creatively write short stories and poetry practicing their spelling, grammar and punctuation. Science experiments with magnets help them understand our planet and the principles of gravity. Counting continues through 200 and addition, subtraction, simple multiplication and division are practiced throughout the year. The fundamentals of art and music are discussed and explored from the differences between warm and cold colors and what they represent to identifying rhythm, melody and tempo in songs. Our young explorers begin to use their cardinal points to explore the geography of our world and the history behind it. Spanish explorers like Columbus and Cortez, early civilizations such as the Egyptians and American Indians. American History and the original 13 colonies is just the beginning.

Second Grade

• Favorite Poems - old and new, from the beloved "The Night Before Christmas" to prizewinning Gwendolyn Brooks's "Rudolph Is Tired of the City"
• Literature - from around the world, with African folktales, American tall tales, European fairy tales, and classic myths from ancient Greece
• Learning about Language - the basic building blocks of written English, all explained with a touch of humor and common sense
• World and American History and Geography - visit Japan, explore ancient Greece, travel the Underground Railroad with Harriet Tubman
• Visual Arts - with activities full-color reproductions of masterworks by El Greco, Van Gogh, Hokusai, and others
• Music - basic theory, great composers, instruments, and fun-to-sing songs such as "I've Been Working on the railroad" and "Do-Re-Mi"
• Math - challenging lessons ranging from telling time and doing fractions, numbers to 100, and a first look at geometry
• Science - the cycle of life and the seasons, levers and magnets, the wonder of the human body, and more - with lots of hands-on activities and stories about famous scientists

Third Grade

• Favorite Poems - old and new, from the traditional Mother Goose rhyme "For Want of a Nail" to Lewis Carroll's whimsical poem "The Crocodile"
• Literature - from around the world, including Native American stories, African folktales, European fairy tales, classic myths from ancient Greece, stories from ancient Rome, and more
• Learning about Language - he basics of written English, including sentence structure, parts of speech, and a first look at writing a report or letter
• World and American History and Geography - journey down the great rivers of Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, visit ancient Rome, and experience the earliest days of America with the Pilgrims and Native Americans
• Visual Arts - an introduction to masterworks by Rembrandt, Henri Matisse, Mary Cassatt, and others, with full-color reproductions and fun, do-it-yourself activities Music - the basics of appreciating, reading, and making music, plus great
• Music - the basics of appreciating, reading, and making music, plus great composers, instruments, and sing-along lyrics for songs such as "A Bicycle Built for Two" and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands"
• Math - stimulating lessons ranging from counting money to solving division problems, numbers through 100,000, graphs, and the metric system
• Science - fascinating discussions on the natural world, the cycles of life, the human body and its systems, pollution , and the environment - with accompanying activities and stories about famous scientists such as Copernicus and Alexander Graham Bell

Fourth Grade

• Favorite Poems - old and new, from the familiar classic "Paul Revere's Ride" to award-winner Langston Hughes's "Dreams"
• Literature - from around the world, including African and Chinese folktales, excerpts from beloved novels, and condensed versions of popular classics such as Gulliver's Travels and "Rip Van Winkle"
• Learning about Language - the basics of written English, including grammar, punctuation, parts of speech, synonyms and antonyms, plus an introduction to common English sayings and phrases
• World and American History and Geography - explore world history from the Middle Ages to the rise of Islam, and broaden knowledge of American colonial history, from the drafting of the Constitution to slavery and the early American reformers
• Visual Arts - a broad spectrum of art from around the world, including African masks, Islamic architecture, Chinese calligraphy, and great American painters - featuring full-color reproductions
• Music - understanding and appreciating music, from the basics of musical notation to the orchestra, plus great composers and sing-along lyrics for such favorites as "Auld Lang Syne" and "Waltzing Matilda"
• Math - challenging lessons ranging from fractions and decimals to understanding graphs, making change, square roots, and the metric system
• Science - discover the wonders of the human body and its systems, learn about electricity, atoms, chemistry, geology, and meteorology - plus concise biographies of some of the great scientists of our time

Fifth Grade

• Favorite Poems - old and new, from Langston Hughes's "I, Too" to Lewis Carroll's famous nonsense poem "Jabberwocky"
• Literature - from around the world, including Native American stories, Japanese tales, and condensed versions of classics, from Don Quixote to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• Learning about Language - the rules of written English, parts of speech, literal and figurative language, common sayings and phrases, and a brief introduction to researching and writing a report
• World and American History and Geography - explore latitude and longitude; Aztec, Inca, and Maya civilizations; European history during the Age of Exploration, the Renaissance, and the Reformation; and American history topics, including the Civil War, westward expansion, and the struggles of Native Americans
• Visual Arts - art from around the world, from Renaissance paintings to American landscapes to Japanese gardens, with discussions of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Botticelli - along with more than twenty full-color reproductions
• Music - the basics of understanding, appreciating and reading music, plus great composers from Beethoven to Mendelssohn, and an introduction to African-American spirituals
• Math - stimulating lessons, including percentages, number sense, long division, decimals, graphs, and geometry - as well as a quick introduction to pre-algebra
• Science - fascinating discussions of taxonomy, atoms, the periodic table, human growth stages, plants, life cycles, and reproduction - plus short biographies of famous scientists such as Galileo

Sixth Grade

• Favorite Poems - old and new, from Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Raven" to Maya Angelou's "Woman Work"
• Literature - from around the world, including Homer's epics the Iliad and the Odyssey, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, and Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper
• Learning about Language - the rules of written English, including the four kinds of sentences, common English sayings and phrases, plus an introduction to Greek and Latin roots
• History and Geography - world history from ancient Greece and the fall of the Roman Empire to the Enlightenment and the French Revolution; American history of the post-Civil War era, including the Industrial Revolution, immigration, urbanization and reform
• Visual Arts - a brief history of art, stretching from the classical period through the Renaissance, Baroque and Romantic periods all the way to the age of realism, with full-color reproductions and discussions of great works by artists such as El Greco, Rembrandt, and Winslow Homer
• Music - understanding and appreciating music, including musical notation, chords, and scales - plus biographies of great composers such as Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin
• Math - challenging lessons, ranging from probability and statistics, geometry, rations and proportions to basic pre-algebra
• Science - fascinating discussions of plate tectonics, oceans, astronomy, the environment, the human body, and the immune system - plus short biographies of great scientists such as Marie Curie