Lower School Curriculum (Grades PK-3)

MISSION STATEMENT

The Oakwood School seeks to instill in its students the strength of character, the creativity, and the wisdom to make a difference in the world.

CURRICULUM OVERVIEW

The Oakwood School serves a range of students, aiming to instill in each of them an eagerness to learn as well as the social skills to safely and successfully navigate our complex world. Our Lower School curriculum reflects high standards and expectations, but it also aims to preserve a measure of flexibility in order to work with students as individuals. We are cognizant of the different readiness and achievement levels among students, and we strive to help them experience academic success according to their individual natures, stages of development, and current understandings. Above all, teachers in the Lower School want to create students who value and enjoy learning with the hope that their students become lifelong learners and positive, productive citizens so that they can experience the joys and fulfillment that such a life brings.

The Lower School curriculum incorporates integrated and differentiated learning to create an environment where students are encouraged to see and understand connections among various disciplines and learn to the best of their abilities. The curriculum places the student at the center of his or her own education through active exploration and hands-on learning.

A well-rounded curriculum is central to creating lifelong learners. Starting in Pre-kindergarten, students in the Lower School take classes in studio art, Spanish, music, fitness, and library. These co-curricular classes broaden the students’ understandings and sensibilities and enhance their lives.

The social-emotional development of our students is a primary concern of Oakwood teachers. They seek to create in their students the foundations of honesty, respect, and responsibility to oneself and to others. They work to develop self-control in their students and to develop their abilities to accept routines and change. Finally, they promote student self-esteem, self-expression, and self-advocacy.

Developing an awareness in our students of other cultures and traditions and guiding students to participate in and discover the joys of community service is central to our mission of preparing students to make a difference in the world. Teachers choose literature and textual material that explore the richness and wonders of the family of man and invite students to share their own families’ rich histories and traditions.  Each class in the Lower School involves children in a project that allows students to feel responsible for making the world a better place. We are committed to developing early on in a child’s education an understanding of one’s duty to society and the need to look beyond oneself.

CO-CURRICULAR CLASSES

ART
In Pre-K through third grade, the elements of art and principles of design are the foundation for the art program. Students view the work of artists who lived during various historical periods and in various regions of the world and study their methods to gain understandings of beliefs, ideas, values, and histories of cultures.  Students use math, reading, and writing skills to explore concepts and aid in the learning process. We believe that all students can develop artistic skills through practice and observation. Some students have an innate talent in art but they, too, need to develop their skills and understandings through exposure to artistic concepts and principles. The goal of our art program is to help children learn to “see” in a way that they can translate into art and to help develop in them a love of art while having fun in and with the process.

MUSIC
The Lower School music program is designed to encourage children’s natural enthusiasm for music. For many children, this is their first experience with any type of structured music class. Students learn to recognize and demonstrate the basic musical elements of melody, rhythm, harmony, texture, tempo, dynamics, timbre, and form. Through singing, moving, playing instruments, and creating, and guided listening, children discover and develop their musical abilities. Students begin to learn how to read and write music in preparation for learning to play the recorder in third grade and are exposed to different styles of music from different genres and composers through listening as well as music activities. Performance opportunities for students are available in the community and in our school concerts, but our focus is developing the fundamental skills and understandings of music. Finally, Suzuki-method violin lessons are provided during school for interested PK-4th grade students at an additional cost to parents.

SPANISH
The Lower School Spanish curriculum is based on research showing that children learn subsequent languages best in the same way they learn their first language—by listening, and internalizing what they hear and by speaking, before they start to read and write. In grades PK-2 the emphasis is on listening and speaking almost exclusively. By third grade, students begin to so some reading and writing in Spanish. In our classes we have “serious fun”— we do the serious business of learning via fun activities that naturally encourage the acquisition of language. These activities include learning many songs and rhymes, doing story time read-alouds, and playing vocabulary-learning games.

FITNESS
The Lower School fitness program is a sports-based curriculum that emphasizes healthy living, skill development, rules of the games, and teamwork. The sports included in the curriculum are volleyball, basketball, soccer, baseball, and softball. Fun lead-up games are used to vary the classes and add interest to the learning of each sport. The Presidential Fitness Test is administered to children in grades 1-3 and is used to raise the children’s awareness of their own fitness levels and of the importance of physical exercise to one’s general health and wellbeing.

LIBRARY
The Oakwood School library is a warm, inviting space. A media coordinator manages the book and resource collections and teaches a class in the library once a week to each Lower School class. She provides our Lower School students with a variety of literary experiences and promotes a love of reading and appreciation of books and other reading materials. All of our students love listening to stories in the library. In addition, students learn basic bibliographic skills that enable them to navigate the library and to do beginning research activities. Intriguing monthly themes provide the framework for many of the projects and reading selections.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Today’s children, Digital Natives, have different learning styles and needs from those of generations past. Technology plays a significant role in their learning process. Children are very comfortable using the tools of today and for that reason, we are using those tools to deliver our curriculum and cultivate the students’ individual achievements.

It is very important for students to use technology so their learning becomes more self-directed and engaging. This direct involvement empowers children to become independent learners. Technology, with its ability to create worldwide connections, develops globalized 21st century citizens. The Oakwood School’s mission is to prepare our students to become productive and positive global citizens who can make a difference in the world.

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has developed standards of achievement for our use of technology in education. We begin to implement these standards in our Lower School. Some of the standards are: Creativity and Innovation, Communication and Collaboration, Research and Information Fluency, Digital Citizenship, Critical Thinking-Problem Solving and Decision Making, and Technology Operations and Concepts.

We immerse the students gradually into the use of computers in the Lower School. Pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade students utilize desktops in their classroom as learning centers for small groups. At these grade levels technology is used to develop basic literacy, math, and keyboarding skills and to foster an excitement about using the computer to find information. Second and third grade students use a laptop lab that rotates among their classrooms. At these grades, teachers expand upon what students have already learned and teach research skills and report writing using computer technology. The goal at these grade levels is to prepare the children for full-time laptop use in Middle School.

PRE-KINDERGARTEN

The pre- kindergarten classroom has one teacher, one assistant teacher, and a maximum of 16 children. Oakwood’s pre-kindergarten program recognizes the value of child-directed play and provides adult facilitation in order to make play activities positive learning experiences.  Children are encouraged to wonder, experiment, explore, and problem solve through the variety of activities that integrate concepts of math, science, social studies, pre-reading, and pre-writing. There is a balance of child-directed and teacher-directed learning experiences as well as a combination of large group, small group and individual learning opportunities. Outdoor play is an important element in early childhood development and is planned into each day’s schedule.  Nature walks and field trips are coordinated to extend and enhance learning. There is an emphasis on the acquisition of basic social skills that will lay the foundation for interactions with peers and teachers throughout the children’s school experiences and into the years beyond. 

The pre-kindergarten uses the Creative Curriculum as a foundation for its program philosophy as well as a tool for classroom planning and individual assessment. The goals and objectives of the Creative Curriculum address the areas of social/emotional development, physical development, cognitive development, and language development. In addition to the regular classroom learning experiences, children have weekly instruction in Spanish, art, music, fitness, and library. Desktop computers are located in the classroom, and children are exposed to age-appropriate computer programs to complement curriculum units.  The children participate in all school activities such as assemblies and pep rallies. 

KINDERGARTEN

Each kindergarten classroom has one teacher, one assistant teacher, and a maximum of 16 children. Oakwood’s kindergarten program actively involves children in speaking, listening, and discovering solutions to meaningful problems while children explore concepts in language arts, mathematics, science, social studies and the arts. Developmentally appropriate activities spark the children’s imaginations and develop motor skills, perseverance, and cooperative work. In a caring and supportive environment, children are introduced to the Rigby Literacy program, a comprehensive research-based literacy program designed to develop comprehension and communications skills through guided reading, shared reading, phonics, phonemic awareness, word structure, and writing. Teachers in grades K-2 use the Everyday Mathematics Program developed by educators and researchers at the University of Chicago; the kindergarten strand emphasizes verbal interaction and hands-on activities that lay the foundation for symbolic understanding. The social studies program emphasizes an awareness and understanding of respect, responsibility, and honesty to self and others as the students cover topics such as families, homes, holidays, our country, and our world. The science curriculum cultivates the skills of observation, comparison, classification, prediction, experimentation, estimation, and drawing conclusions. The kindergarten classrooms each have several desktop computers. Desktop computers in the kindergarten classrooms are used as a literacy center. Children use computer programs to complement their reading skills work, to promote their hand-eye coordination, and to develop a comfort with using the computer. Programs are located on Internet websites such as starfall.com and pbskids.org. Year-round outdoor play allows the children to develop coordination and large muscle skills and to play in a less structured but well supervised setting. 

Augmenting the homeroom curriculum are field trips to various cultural and educational sites and a special interactive program with the fifth grade. The H.U.G.S. (Help us Grow Strong) program which matches kindergarten students with fifth grade partners enables students to form strong school relationships while teaching mutual understanding and respect for each other’s individual personalities. Kindergarten students serve the greater community by engaging in activities with an elder care facility and with a community food pantry.

FIRST GRADE

Each first grade classroom has one teacher and one assistant teacher.
The first grade language arts curriculum builds on the foundation begun in kindergarten with the continuation of the Rigby Literacy Program. A strong emphasis is placed on phonics and decoding skills as well as reading comprehension and expressive writing. The first grade math curriculum develops a strong foundation in numeration, computation, geometry, measurement, and problem solving through the use of manipulative materials and the Everyday Math Program that promotes creative and analytical thinking as well as mastery of facts. The curriculum spirals through the instruction of a concept with many opportunities for experimentation and application of skills. The social studies curriculum relates the students’ immediate worlds of home, school, and community with the broader concepts of state, nation, and world through exposure to history, culture, geography, citizenship, and basic economic concepts.
The science curriculum cultivates the skills of observing, comparing, classifying, predicting, experimenting, and concluding. The AIMS Educational Materials and Scholastic Banner Units as well as books, instructional videos, guest speakers, and field trips are used in the science program. Students begin keyboarding skills practice in first grade using the Read, Write, and Type and the Type to Learn programs and integrate technology with theme-based activities throughout the year.

The first grade supports the Ronald McDonald House as its community service project. Students make door decorations for the House, and guests often ask to take home the decorations that gave them solace during their stay at the House. Children donate pantry items to the House, and children work throughout the year to earn $10.00 each, the cost of a night’s stay for one family at the Ronald McDonald House. 

SECOND GRADE

Each second grade classroom has one teacher and a shared assistant teacher.

The goal of the second grade literacy program is to develop independent readers and writers who apply literacy skills to learning. The reading program emphasizes reading for various purposes including reading for pleasure, information, and research. Through the Rigby Literacy curriculum, basic skills of recognizing and decoding words, understanding vocabulary, and using comprehension and communication strategies are taught and provide students with the tools they require to be successful readers and writers. The shared inquiry approach for literary discussions promotes imagination and curiosity as well as critical thinking and communication skills. The writing process (a cycle of idea development, pre-writing, drafting, revision, proofreading, and publishing) is integrated through all areas of the curriculum.

The second grade math curriculum continues the Everyday Mathematics program in which hands-on, cooperative, inquiry-based math learning is emphasized. Students share strategies and demonstrate the internalization of skills at the highest levels.

The social studies program includes a survey of the geography of our world: continents, oceans, and landforms. It also includes a study of our country and its people with an emphasis on developing citizenship. Native Americans, early explorers, and famous Americans are topics that are covered.

The science program emphasizes the concept of change through the topic of plant and animal adaptations in the temperate forest, polar, and ocean habitats. Continuing with the AIMS materials used in first grade, the students discover that the scientific process is closely linked to concepts used in the study of math.

Second graders have access to the lab cart that contains laptops for use in grades PK-3, and the students frequently use these laptops. Students begin learning their way around the keyboards on the laptops by using typing drills, writing stories using word processing, and playing educational games. Using different fonts, colors, and type size while typing poems and short stories helps students learn how to use and enjoy using word processing tools.  Research on topics such as temperate forests, bats, and polar animals allows the students to learn how to use the Internet with teacher guidance and supervision. Internet research skills include learning to navigate through websites, using links to other sites, and reading for information.

Second graders serve the community by supporting the Eastern North Carolina Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. Volunteers from the Center visit the classes in the fall to explain their work, and after this, students raise money to help the foundation with its mission. A look at the organization’s website shows the gratitude it has for the Oakwood second graders’ significant support of their work.

THIRD GRADE

In third grade the concepts of responsibility, self-direction, and self-control are emphasized. The homeroom teachers share the two classes for the teaching of social studies and science: one teacher teaches science and the other teaches social studies to each of the groups. This requires the students to more carefully organize and is good preparation for the increased departmentalization that occurs in middle school. Students learn to be responsible for their materials and assignments, to work more independently, to transition between activities independently, and to be respectful participants in a more independent learning environment.

Third grade students use a phonetic approach to decode, analyze, comprehend words, and read expressively a variety of textual material. They acquire strategies for accessing information and explore and communicate concepts using both oral and written language. The Open Court series of short reading selections includes poetry, short stories, and excerpts from novels and non-fiction pieces and is used throughout the fall term. After the December break, students are placed in small groups and enjoy reading novels together. Story elements are discussed, and students collaborate on a book project as a culmination to their group’s work. Writing concepts, grammar, usage, spelling, vocabulary building, and language mechanics are emphasized to improve writing and oral communication skills. Both expository and expressive writing is taught, and the correct use of grammar and the importance of revision and proofreading are emphasized.

In third grade, the math program at Oakwood transitions from using Everyday Math materials to using SRA Real Math materials to expand the range of the students’ math experiences, understandings, and problem solving strategies. The students multiply and divide whole numbers; identify place value of whole numbers, decimals, and fractions; work with metric and standard units of measurement; investigate numeration and order of numbers; compare number quantities; and explore geometric principles.

In social studies students learn about living in communities by looking back into past communities, building a government, and working together in a community. The focus of the third grade science curriculum is the understanding of regularities in systems and of the principle that systems are made up of organized groups of related objects and components. Systems that are studied include the solar system; light, heat, and sound; the musculoskeletal system of humans (with a brief introduction to comparative anatomy); and plant and soil concepts.

In third grade, students continue their preparation for using and owning individual laptops in fourth grade. Our portable computer lab is utilized in many facets of our curriculum to provide opportunities to practice using word processing software, Internet research tools, and presentation software. As part of this learning experience, students are given lessons in handling and caring for their computers.

The Good Deeds Team offers an important community service opportunity, is run by a third grade teacher, and is open to second and third graders. The team meets after school and focuses on students themselves finding ways to reach out to others at home, school, and in the community. The goal of the club is to have students reach within themselves and out to others by determining and executing projects they can do individually or collectively that will make a difference in the world in which they personally live and work.