Main lesson information.

Each morning will begin with movement, singing, and recitation. We sing together and recite poems to exercise the students’ capacities for speech formation, verbal expression, and listening to one another. We move on to rhythmical movement activities, such as tossing bean bags, jumping rope, and hand clapping games, through which we work on left/right recognition, crossing midlines, spatial awareness, and coordinated movement.

Below you can find a brief example of what will happen in each of the main lesson blocks: Form Drawing, Language Arts, and Mathematics.

Form Drawing

Through images and stories the children become aware that the whole world is made up of straight and curved lines. Through a series of movements, they awaken to the feeling of the form. Form drawing is a wonderful course to start off the year in that it provides a good foundation for letter recognition and writing (posture, writing grip, use of materials, spatial orientation on a page – size, spacing, placement, direction). It helps develop the children’s concentration, hand/eye coordination,and neatness in writing. It will also help strengthen their bodily sense of balance and proprioception.The children will draw and explore forms in a variety of different ways, such as whole body movement, with fingers in the air, on one another’s backs, on slates, in sand trays, and more! Lastly,they will bring the form to rest by copying the form into their main lesson books.

Language Arts

The fairy tale genre is the basis for the language arts curriculum. We will explore the consonant sounds of the alphabet through the journeys of characters in fairy tales from various world cultures. These imaginative stories provide the children with an engaging and meaningful way to learn the letters of the alphabet. Through these activities the child builds a multi-sensory (emotional, visual, and aural) relationship to the abstract symbols of the alphabet.

Mathematics

A lively introduction to numbers takes place through mathematical immersion into forms of rhythmic and geometrical patterns. Through stories and rhythmic games and poems, the children will learn about the quality of numbers. Through imagination and manipulatives, the four processes will be introduced: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The children will gain working knowledge of their symbols, including in verbal and written forms

Class Play

The class play is a highlight of the year, for it is a rich creative and social process for a class. Different than most dramatic experiences, the end performance is not the key goal. Instead, the goals are multifold – intending to inspire the students and help them in their transformative unfolding. There will be a parent performance of the play (date TBD).