Upper Elementary

The Environment

Cosmic Education, the interconnectedness of everything, is the focus of the elementary curriculum.  All curriculum areas are integrated together while the room is prepared to allow students to be spontaneous learners. Doing so offers an opportunity for to children think, reason, and understand their place in the universe.  It encompasses the whole child, academically, socially, and emotionally. Stories spark the imagination and guide the children toward great work.

As social beings, these students need to practice interacting in society and exploring the outside world.  Going out to investigate a subject is introduced at the Upper Elementary level. These student-planned going-outs help further their knowledge of a specific topic while providing opportunities for real-world interactions like making phone calls, getting directions, and preparing for a trip.

Language - Students work on developing skills in written and spoken language, grammar and syntax, Greek and Latin etymology, word study, parts speech, composition, sentence analysis, vocabulary, reading comprehension, literature studies, and writing style. 

Math/Geometry - Materials are used for a greater understanding of advanced math and build off of previous concepts taught in lower el and work towards abstraction.  Math is integrated throughout the curriculum.  All students will work with basic operations, fractions, decimals, and integers.  Continued practice includes squaring and cubing, square roots and cube roots, and powers of numbers. Students may also investigate ratios and proportions, number bases, slopes, and algebra. Geometry provides the opportunity for logical thinking and deductive reasoning.  Through hands-on material, students explore congruency and equivalence, polygons, lines and angles, area and volume, and higher maths such as the theorems of Pythagoras and Euclid.

Cultural Studies: The purpose throughout the cultural studies (Biology, History, Geography, Science) is for the students to view the world as a whole and to see the interdependence of all life.  Students learn so much through historical, cultural, and scientific stories.  These stories generate interest and ignite curiosity so the students can then research and explore based on their interests. The story of the timeline of life kicks off our study in biology every year!  Experiences, experiments, and demonstrations allow the children to see for themselves science in the works.  The students choose independent research to study more in-depth topics such as astronomy, biology, botany, chemistry, ecology, geology, human anatomy, meteorology, and physics. Cultural topics cover the creation of the universe, states of matter, the sun and the earth, the work of water and air, and economic geography, as well as cultures and countries.

The goal of the Upper El PE program is to teach students good sportsmanship, how to lose/win in a graceful manner, help them gain confidence, and be able to work together with others.  Fitness, motor skills, the human body, and nutrition are ongoing studies. Students are outside as much as possible putting practical life skills to work - nature journaling, trash pick-ups, exploring the woods, looking for different plant specimens, and so much more!