Fourth grade students participate in an overnight study trip to Fort Ross. This is the culmination of a month-long study of the Russians in California.
Fifth grade students participate in a five-day study trip to MOSAIC, a unique human relations outdoor school located near Sonoma.
Sixth grade students participate in a four-day study trip to the Live Power Community Farm, a program that complements their studies of history, culture, and science. Students learn to apply lessons about individual and group responsibility at the farm to the greater world.
Seventh grade students participate in a five-day study trip to Yosemite National Park with the Yosemite Institute. The students engage in group challenges and environmental stewardship activities involving scientific lessons that reinforce the seventh grade science curriculum. The program focuses on balancing individual and group responsibility.
Eighth grade Eighth grade students travel to Los Angeles for a five-day service learning and community-building trip. Students learn about different communities in need and then participate in hands-on projects to assist them. In the evenings students take advantage of the fun LA has to offer and enjoy each other’s company.
In Kindergarten, the focus is on creating a community of learners who honor each other's similarities and differences, show respect for each other's ideas and thoughts, and care for each other's feelings. Students learn to work constructively together as they gather information, contribute to class projects, and develop their individual skills.
Kindergartners weave together their developing skills (in math, language arts, science, and humanities) through their study of the transformation and growth of pond life. They explore the interdependence between plants and animals through their study and restoration of nearby Canyon Trail Park. They also discover the connections between literary, musical, visual and performing arts in our yearlong exploration of Jazz music.
Books are at the heart of the Language Arts program. Our goal is to foster a love of literature, language, and communication. Through immersion in words and books, kindergartners come to understand and appreciate the world of print and the process of writing. Many genres of reading and writing (e.g. poetry as well as real life and imaginary narratives) are explored throughout the year. Kindergartners are developing authors who express themselves through pictures, words, and sentences.
Kindergarten is the place to build a strong foundation of language skills such as letter-sound associations, rhyming words, high frequency words, concepts of print, sequence in story-telling, and comprehension. Singing, chanting, and dramatizations are some favorite ways of bringing literature to life.
First graders explore a variety of communities, from the classroom itself to the Bay Area as a whole. They begin by studying the people and jobs that support school life on a daily basis. The scope of study then expands to the neighborhoods, including a close-up study of the post office. Using local markets, gardens, and farms as extensions of the classroom, first graders take a focused look at the community that produces and supplies our food. Students are encouraged to recognize the interconnectedness of the many communities they study and most importantly, their role within these communities.
The Language Arts program incorporates a wide variety of activities in order to ensure a balanced literacy program consisting of a Reading Workshop, a Writing Workshop, and a Word Study program. The development of life-long reading is a top priority in first grade. Emphasis is placed on understanding concepts of print, developing strategies for decoding words (phonics). and understanding text (comprehension). The students read and write every day - independently, in small groups, and as a class. The craft of good writing is taught in mini-lessons as the class explores the writing process and various genres. The Word Study program focuses on the relationships between spelling patterns and their corresponding sounds, high frequency words, and other strategies based on the specific learning styles of students.
Students undertake an in-depth study of various cultures and their ways of life. Through the study of geography, customs, art, and stories, they are introduced to different societies in Italy, China, and Ghana, and are encouraged to find similarities and to celebrate differences. Towards the end of each unit we study immigrant groups from each of these cultures in the Bay Area. Special guests with primary knowledge of these cultures, and related field trips, personalize the learning experience for the students. Individual writing, group activities, art projects, discussions, musical performances, and a guided research project accommodate a range of skill levels and learning styles and allow students to demonstrate their understanding in a variety of ways. The year culminates in a study of our ancestors.
The balanced literacy program continues. Students read individually, in pairs, and in small groups using a wide variety of children's literature. Mini-lessons in Reading Workshop and during read aloud continue to offer strategies for decoding, but begin to focus more and more on comprehension, making connections, asking questions, making predictions, charting character traits, and visualizing. In Writing Workshop, students work through the steps of the writing process - gathering entries, nurturing a seed idea, drafting, revising, editing and publishing. Different genres such as personal narrative, poetry, folktales, non-fiction and letter writing are explored. In addition, students write research reports on African animals during our study of Ghana. Work on phonics and spelling continues. Students also make oral presentations, recite poems, and perform simple plays to enrich their literacy experience.
Students develop an awareness of different lifestyles within the American continent through a comprehensive examination of various groups of people, beginning with the First People of California and subsequently studying the peoples of Alaska and Mexico. They acquire a deeper understanding of these cultures by examining their histories, ways of life, and stories, both past and present. Primary sources and real life models help students make concrete discoveries. Diversity of cultures, folk tales, and numerous celebrations are studied. In addition, students study geography and maps in depth.
Chapter books are an integral component of the curriculum. Students compare and contrast texts with personal experience, other texts, and the world around them. The emphasis is on reading for comprehension, developing analysis and inference skills, and responding to texts orally and in writing. Students engage in reading groups, read-alouds by the teacher, and independent reading.
Writing Workshop focuses on the writing process. Students use a writer's notebook and work through drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Different genres studied include poetry, fiction, personal narrative, and writing for other subjects. Crafting techniques include character description, plot development, main ideas, and adding details. Writing mechanics and spelling instruction become increasingly more important throughout the year. Cursive is introduced in handwriting.
The fourth grade humanities curriculum concentrates on teaching California history from the time of the first European exploration through the Gold Rush period. The focus is on natural as well as cultural history, and how the two are interwoven. There is an additional concentration on geography, both world and local. An interdisciplinary approach is used in the teaching of the history of California involving art, science, music, literature, geography, social science, and math. Underlying themes which relate to the students’ own lives are those of exploration, ecology, diversity, and codes of behavior for living in a community.
Students read and write in many genres (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and journals), and across all subject areas. Reading takes place in book clubs in which students are encouraged to recognize and discuss the deeper meanings. Students look at plot, character, theme, and emotional content of the literature, as well as literary styles and conventions. Increased emphasis is placed on gleaning information from non-fiction texts in conjunction with the humanities curriculum. A major research project is undertaken mid-year.
In fourth grade, the students participate regularly in Writing Workshop, where the emphasis is on writing as a process – from prewriting to drafting, conferencing and editing, to revising for final drafts. In addition to generating their own topics on which they wish to write, students are assigned more structured writing tasks, often having to do with the humanities curriculum. Through whole-class mini-lessons, individual conferences, teacher modeling, and their own work, students further learn the conventions and mechanics of writing. More sophisticated grammar and punctuation rules are introduced and practiced. Students become more competent at self-editing for both content and mechanics.
A Nation of Many Peoples: United States History and Geography
Fifth graders prepare to participate in an increasingly diverse world by exploring these essential questions:
What happens when people who are different respect one another? What obstacles get in the way of mutual respect?
What role do knowledge and empathy play in establishing mutual respect?
The year begins with a focus on immigration. Students connect world geography with significant migrations to the United States, and to fairy tales—stories people bring with them when leaving their native lands. Students explore the reasons different peoples have immigrated to America, the contribution of immigrants to American cultural life, and some of the challenges they have faced.
Students then follow the emergence and growth of a new nation, beginning with the first encounters between the Native people, the Europeans, and Africans. As they study the shift from colonies to country, they consider the experiences and contributions of various racial, religious, and ethnic groups. Students use a variety of texts and documents, and various audio-visual resources. Projects include interviews, informational posters, timelines, independent research, role-playing, and historical first-person journals and letters.
Literature
Class texts are selected for their connection to major themes. For example, students read and reflect on stories of cross-cultural experiences in order to further develop awareness of what it means to be a responsible global citizen. In addition, students are introduced to a wide range of literature in the classroom and school library. Activities include independent reading, partnered reading, and directed whole-class readings. Students participate in class discussions, reflection, and sharing, focusing on genre, main idea, vocabulary, setting, plot, characterization, point of view, theme, and literary devices.
Writing
Students gain experience writing in several genres, including personal narrative, poetry, essay, and fiction, with an emphasis on fluency and clarity in form and expression. They begin to use introductions, transitions, and conclusions as they work through the writing process. Writing assignments within and outside the context of studies in American history, including writing from research and in response to literature, provide opportunities for students to develop a variety of writing skills. Grammar and punctuation are emphasized in final drafts.
The Humanities program is a project-based exploration of sustainability in both historical and modern contexts. Our essential question is: What sustains a community? We start the year by examining this question in depth in our orientation anti-bias unit. Other units are developed around some of the following themes: what is sustainability?; sustainability in ancient cultures; sustainability in our food system. Major projects include the Sustainable World notebook in the fall, the Museum of Ancient Cultures in the late winter and the Farm Festival in the spring. Through the lens of sustainability students learn research, study and critical thinking skills, including media literacy taught in conjunction with the Library/Tech Department. Students also learn how to create and write thesis driven paragraphs and essays, supported by evidence from their research, and to present their work to the community. The 6th Service Learning curriculum grows organically out of our exploration of sustainability.
Literature
The Literature and Reading Buddies program is designed to help students live a literate life. In addition to teaching reading and literature appreciation and analysis, it enhances the homeroom program because it is linked wherever possible to the themes being studied. Class texts, discussions, and literature responses serve as the training ground for independent reading and analysis in the "reading buddies" program. The literature programs incorporate the same writing elements as Writer's Workshop.
Writing
Our writing program emphasizes personal expression, while teaching the skills necessary for academic writing. Students participate in a daily Writers' Workshop, in which they learn to collect material, focus their ideas, write a draft, use revision and editing strategies, and ready their pieces for publication. Types of writing include personal narrative, personal essay, short fiction, and poetry. In addition to the integration of writing skills and mechanics in Writer's Workshop, the students also do a daily grammar practice.
Cultures in Contact and Change Makers: Elements of World History
The two essential questions we work from are: "How do cultures come into contact and what are the results?" and "Why and how do people act as change makers?" Students examine the histories and beliefs of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, then trace the interactions between the practitioners of these religions during the Middle Ages.They follow the growth and spread of Islam into the Golden Age and investigate Christianity's influence on the development of medieval European culture. As Christians and Muslims clash in the Crusades, students are able to see the positive and negative effects of cultures in contact. Students follow Arab traders across the Sahara to the West African Empire of Mali, studying the impact of Islam on that culture. Finally, the course returns to Europe to study the influence of that contact during Crusades in the High Middle Ages. We also examine individuals or groups of people who act as change makers in the context of their societies.
Literature
Class literature is selected both for its relevance to the historical framework of the humanities course and for its literary value and appeal to seventh graders. Guided reading and extensive class discussion encourage understanding, critical analysis, and the appreciation of story and language. Students also select books for independent reading projects, during which they write reflections and create a digital story in conjunction with the technology department.
Current Events
Another facet of the course that involves integration of the Humanities and Library-Technology departments is the current events curriculum. It begins in the fall with group work on one aspect of a current issue such as elections, global warming, homelessness, violence, etc. After the group project students choose a topic to pursue individually, which they research and create an educational media tool such as podcast, newscast, online magazine article or website.
Writing
The Humanities curriculum emphasizes the development of academic writing skills using textual evidence to defend a thesis. Students learn to develop a thesis idea, identify supporting evidence, and incorporate that evidence effectively into their writing. Seventh grade writing instruction also includes review and practice of proper citation of sources and the use of conventional writing mechanics and proper grammar. In addition to academic writing, students will also have a variety of directed creative writing assignments, including stories, historical fiction, poetry, and personal vignettes. In the spring we do a mini-unit persuasive speech, for which students choose a topic of interest to research and write a short speech about.
Finding a Voice: Standing up for Self and Others: Topics in U.S. History
Students begin with an examination of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as the foundation of our nation. Major areas of study include the major migrations at the start of the 20th century, the Second World War, the Cold War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Social Justice Movements of the 1960's and 1970's. The course is designed as an inquiry into the conditions under which individuals are willing to take a stand for what they believe in. The aim is to familiarize students with significant events from American history while investigating the concepts of integrity, courage, and right action. Students also develop their research skills and practice using primary sources and technology in preparation for high school history classes.
Literature
Class literature is selected both for its relevance to the theme of taking a stand and for its literary value and appeal to eighth grade students. Works are selected from a variety of genres, including short stories, traditional-styled novels, graphic novels, and poetry. Students explore literary concepts, especially theme and style, mostly by preparing for and participating in group and whole class discussions.
Writing
The writing program for eighth graders continues the work begun in the seventh grade on the development of academic writing skills. Eighth graders practice writing short essays in defense of a thesis on various literature and history topics. Writing instruction and practice includes pre-writing (note taking, outlining, and mapping), drafting, revising, and editing. Elements of conventional writing mechanics and grammar are also taught.
The eighth grade Final Project is the culminating activity of the humanities course. Students research an event from recent American history. Then they write an oral history of a first-hand witness of that event. The project requires students to use the research and writing skills they have mastered in both seventh and eighth grades.
