Elementary School Program

Elementary School Curriculums

Grade 1

First grade acts as a bridge between the kindergarten and the grade school years. It begins with the discoveries that behind all forms lie two basic principles: the straight and the curved line. Children find these shapes in their own bodies, in the classroom, and in the world beyond. Straight and curved lines are then practiced through walking, drawing in the air and sand, on the blackboard, and finally, on paper. These form drawings train motor skills, awaken children’s powers of observation, and provide a foundation for introducing the alphabet. The first two hours of every morning are devoted to the Main Lesson. This is the time when the Class Teacher introduces and develops an academic theme over a period of weeks. In the first grade, the letters and numbers are learned with the aid of stories and art.

Curriculum:

Grade 2

At eight years old, children still carry with them much of the imaginative consciousness early childhood, but they are also beginning to be more aware of themselves and others. They start to recognize that they have their own personalities and emotions, some of which are positive and others of which are negative. Honesty and deceit, trust and betrayal, kindness and cruelty—many traditional fables are introduced to show these positive and negative qualities in sharp contrast.

Reading and writing are drawn primarily from the content of fables, nature stories, saint stories and legends. The first elements of composition are practiced. Speech development continues. Dramatic arts are introduced. Arithmetic, including basic operations with expanded application and larger numbers and the multiplication tables are explored.

Curriculum:

Grade 3

The third grade is often called the turning point of childhood. The eight or nine-year-old is going through a change that is particularly profound where she begins to feel herself growing apart from the world. She begins to experience herself as an individual part of the world, not an extension of her parents.

The third grade curriculum is designed to empower the child with life skills and practical activities. These skills help the child reconnect to the world and life in a newfound way. Practical skills of farming, cooking, homebuilding, and measurement are focal points of the third grade year.

Reading, spelling, composition and grammar are refined. Studies of practical activities, emphasizing farming and house building as the basis for geography and science, begin. Creative and performance arts continue. Third grade begins the study of mythology and folk culture through stories from the Old Testament.

Arithmetic progresses to advanced application of basic operations, measurements of time, space, weights and money and facility with multiplication tables.

Curriculum:

Grade 4

Fourth grade marks a shift in the development of the children, as well as how a teacher meets certain aspects of the child through the curriculum. Having passed through the nine-year-change, the child is ready for more concrete tasks and more readily recognizes their place in the world. This new consciousness is met through the study of local geography and local history, as well as the study of animals.

The child at this age tends to be more self aware, and thus is ready to take up greater challenges on the academic front. Fourth grade offers the child the opportunity to engage in their first research project through the study of animals. Each of the other parts of the curriculum support the fourth grade child in finding and knowing their place, and in being comfortable in the time in which they find themselves. The stories from Norse Mythology, and often the Kalevala as well, are brought in order to address the ever-changing emotions of the fourth grade child. The stories contain moments of humor, anger, suspense and tragedy and give the students imaginative content through which they can explore their emerging, rich emotional life.

Curriculum:

Grade 5

Fifth grade is often referred to as the “Golden Age” of the child. Fifth grade also begins a shift to a more historical and scientific look at the world. The fifth grader examines various processes of transformation including historical transformation through the study of ancient civilizations, botany, world geography and beginning work in geometry.

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