Lower School (K-3)
The Lower School is a busy and exciting place, brimming with activity. These wonderful years, from five to nine years old, comprise a time of dramatic growth and change as young children discover and create, experiment and question, and master and apply ever-increasing skills, strategies, and concepts within rich learning environments. Throughout their Lower School years, children disect squid and cook calamari; explore the cultures of China, Japan, Russia, and West Africa; study the diverse cultures and customs of Native Americans; learn about the 50 states that make up the United States —and imagine life in the early settlements of Jamestown and Plymouth.
Children enter Kindergarten eager and ready to continue learning to read and write; they leave Grade 3 as competent and confident readers and writers. Our integrated approach to teaching literacy blends the explicit teaching of skills, the broad use of literature, and varied daily opportunities to read and write in many genres. Young writers are transformed into published authors by frequent visits to the school’s Publishing Center. From a Kindergartner’s reading of Mac and Tab, an early Primary Phonics book, to a Grade 3 student’s reading of Sharon Creech’s beautiful and poignant Love That Dog, children encounter literature in gathering sophistication and complexity as they grow as readers and writers—growth that is truly remarkable.
Lower School children work with a range of specialist teachers in religion, art, music, physical education, science, and technology. Within each subject, students begin to learn the language, skills, tools, and ways of thinking and knowing unique to each discipline whether drawing a still life, designing a crayfish experiment or playing an Orff instrument. Children also regularly visit our wonderful school library to hear a story, browse the shelves, and check out books. Through exemplary teaching and a careful balance of nurture and rigor, children in the Lower School are encouraged to develop their individual talents and skills, to express themselves with clarity and confidence, to think creatively and critically, and to make connections between their learning and the world outside the classroom.
