Primary Level Program

Each group begins the day with a morning meeting that focuses on community building and social learning, and helps to orient for the day. Morning meeting includes greetings, exchanging important news in students' lives, sharing announcements, and discussing issues that affect the group. We also play group games to foster connection and cooperative problem solving.

The whole school gathers for morning meeting on Monday mornings. We greet each other, make announcements, and discuss issues and make decisions that affect the whole school.

The primary group's first block of the day is an independent choice time in which students initiate their own activities, join into activities created by other students, and take part in projects generated by the teacher or which evolve through the interests of the class. Pursuits at choice time often include woodworking, design and construction projects, painting, drawing, handcrafts, science explorations, fantasy play, block building, reading, puzzles, clay sculpture, writing, taking things apart, and puppetry.

We value independent choice for the way it helps students develop a strong sense of themselves and their interests, and develop personal initiative and self-direction within the setting of the school. Students' choices and their approaches to learning during this open time also give us important information about how each student naturally interacts and learns.

Through the year, we engage in a series of thematic inquiries in the areas of science and social studies. Examples of recent themes include: life cycles; water; the scientific process; habitats; and Native American life in our area. Each inquiry provides a focus for learning about an aspect of the world in depth, and gives us a context for developing critical thinking, communication skills, and creative expression. We emphasize hands-on activities to kindle curiosity and to foster understanding. We integrate explorations in the arts with project work. Learning often happens outside.

We immerse primary students in naturally engaging and meaningful language activities to support them as beginning readers and writers. We read enlarged print stories, poems and chants aloud together to model the reading process, teach specific skills, and build excitement for story and language. We voice act stories through reader's theater, and create puppet shows and small plays. We sing together and students all have songbooks, to which we regularly add, so that they can read as well as sing each song. We do direct skill-building work, as well, through spelling and handwriting exercises. The focus is multi-tiered to support readers at different levels.

Primary students write daily in a writer's workshop. The purpose of the workshop is to enable students to think and work like writers, to experience being part of a writing community, to help see writing as a significant and compelling way to develop ideas as well as to communicate them, and to cultivate a love of writing. Young students express themselves initially through drawings, then begin labeling their drawings and writing sentences. Students' writing is published in class anthologies.

Primary students explore new concepts and skills in math through hands-on activities in which they manipulate a variety of math materials and objects. As they progress toward understanding, they incorporate the use of symbols and engage in paper and pencil work. Students alternate between independent practice, projects and math games, and work with the teacher in direct and guided instruction. Science and math are often integrated when data collected from science explorations is analyzed and interpreted. We emphasize conceptual understanding, problem solving, real world applications, and fluency of math skills. Students work at their own level and at their own pace.

Common activities at recess include playing various sports and games, building forts, working on the outdoor classroom, woodworking, sledding on the hill in winter, digging and playing in the sand area, climbing and swinging on the play structures, working in the garden, and whatever else students invent to do.

Primary students spend time reading independently each day. The scaffolding they experience in the morning's shared reading sessions is put to practice in their afternoon independent reading sessions. Students choose books with our assistance. Emerging readers each have a basket of books to choose from that we regularly help to stock.

We read aloud to each group every day. Books for the primary group include shorter picture books as well as chapter books that take several weeks to finish. Reading aloud creates a shared world for a group and serves as a springboard for discussions and for many social studies explorations.

We play group games to develop coordination, strength, and stamina, and to build social game playing skills.

Each younger student in the school is paired with an older student and given support to form a yearlong mentor relationship. A half-hour is set aside each week for the partners to work together on projects and play games.

On Thursday afternoons, all students participate in workshops that typically last about four weeks. Students give input into ideas for the workshops, and choose among workshops for each session. Workshops are offered in the arts, handcrafts and living arts, outdoor adventure, and other experiential learning opportunities. Many workshops take place outside.

Students help to clean and take care of the school. Each person is responsible for an end-of-day chore.