Elementary Curriculum
The Mead curriculum is built to inspire, engage, and energize.
The Mead School prides itself on delivering a rich curriculum that seamlessly marries academic rigor with emotional and social growth. We strive to ignite fearless curiosity, embolden creativity, strengthen caring, foster collaboration, and help students develop a robust sense of self.
Cross-curricular, experiential learning is the norm at Mead, allowing learners to find their voices, take risks, and cultivate their intuition, imagination, and creativity. We meet each child where they are, steward them to where they need to be, and then watch them
In This Section
Pre-K - Grade 5 Curricula
Pre-K
Language Arts
With guidance and support, Mead’s Pre- Kindergarten students begin to understand phonics, recognize and produce rhyming words, ask questions about words in stories, act out characters, make predictions, and make connections between themselves and a story, song or poem. Using the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum, they use a combination of dictating and drawing to create original stories or retell favorites in their own words. Pre-Kindergarten students become active listeners and participants in their own learning.
Mathematics
Pre-Kindergarten students begin to create a relationship with numbers through activities that expose them to counting, shapes, sorting, measurement, coins and money, and studying relative positions of objects and space and three-dimensional shapes, to name a few. The foundations of the following are established.
- Number Sense and Operations
- Patterns and Algebraic Reasoning
- Geometry
- Measurement
Science
With prompting, support, trial and error, Pre-Kindergarten students purposefully experiment with moving objects, examining objects using their five senses to discover their properties, experiment with and make changes to physical objects to understand how water, air, heat, shape, size and color react with them. They explore the environment, changing seasons, gravity, porosity, plants, animal habitats and the conditions in which living things best grow and thrive.
Espanol
Physical Development
The Pre-Kindergarten Physical Development curriculum explores both fine and gross motor skills as well as locomotor skills and balance. Hand-eye coordination, and body and space awareness will be taught in both large areas of play and sometimes smaller classrooms. Instructional and direction-driven games will be conducted. Many of the activities will stem around “imaginative play” where an obstacle course is a “walk in the jungle” or practicing an overhand throw with a small ball is “ throwing snowballs and knocking down the icicles”. The emphasis of fun while learning is key.
Music
Pre-Kindergarten students find the music inside them and their own way of expressing that musicality. The teacher exposes students to many different genres of music and modes of expression. Students learn two overarching skills: singing in tune and keeping a steady beat.
They practice these skills by playing solo singing games and rhythm games. They learn songs from a variety of musical traditions, as well as hand movements that go along with the songs. During guided “explore time,” students play various instruments, and the teacher observes, encourages, and makes suggestions. Students are introduced to songwriting by taking songs they already know and creating new lyrics.
Art
Drama
The Pre-Kindergarten Drama curriculum guides students to explore their imaginations and interact with each other on stage. Students will play theatre games which helps build connections, freedom of physicality and listening skills. Each week the students will be either reading a new book and acting it out or bringing a story that they have created in their center and acting it out in the Black Box Theatre. We explore how stories have a beginning, middle and end, as well as a conflict and resolution. The students have the opportunity to wear costumes and create their environments for their stories.
Kindergarten
Language Arts
Kindergarten Language Arts focuses on the four domains of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Kindergarten students work in whole groups, small groups and one-on-one in a balanced literacy program, including: read alouds, guided reading, independent reading, Writing Workshop, word study, and phonics.
Students often have a burst in reading development during their Kindergarten year. Using interactive games and activities, students build their phonemic awareness, progressing from upper and lowercase letter recognition, letter sound connections, blending phonemes, and then decoding simple CVC and CVCe words. During read-alouds and other shared reading experiences, students practice basic reading comprehension skills (e.g., summarizing, sequencing, and predicting).
Kindergarteners are writers! Beginning with simple “picture stories,” students generate their own writing by drawing pictures to tell a story and labeling the pictures with letter sounds. They then progress to stretching out the sounds to write whole words using invented spelling and finally writing simple sentences using basic punctuation.
Using mentor texts as guides, kindergarten writers learn about the many elements of writing (e.g., connections between print and pictures, story structure) and incorporate that into their own writing experiences. Some favorite kindergarten mentor texts include: Piggy and Elephant Series, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Carrot Seed, and How to Make Slime.
Using Handwriting Without Tears, a program which mirrors Mead’s educational pedagogy, students learn proper letter formation, number formation, and proper pencil grip in a fun and accessible way.
Mathematics
The Kindergarten Mathematics curriculum takes place throughout the day as well as during designated Math times. Individual and group experiences with math concepts are woven into daily investigations using a variety of manipulatives and work stations. Students begin the year by building with concrete materials in very tangible, multi-sensory experiences (such as cuisenaire rods, pattern blocks, unifix cubes, natural materials) to explore sorting and classifying, counting and sequencing, and developing a strong number sense. As the year progresses, students expand on these concepts through graphing data, measurement, operations, and geometry. Kindergarteners participate in guided group activities together in order to build on social-emotional skills for a strong foundation of cooperative learning, playing, and problem-solving.
The focus for the Kindergarten year is to:
● become fluent in one-to-one correspondence;
● demonstrate correct number formation and number names;
● build different strategies for counting objects through daily practice;
● develop number sense from 1-20;
● build skills in counting to 100;
● understand and demonstrate that words and numerals represent a number of counted objects; and
● Recognize shapes and use geometric vocabulary to describe objects in daily life.
Science
Along with all the rich Science experiences that are embedded into Kindergarten interdisciplinary project work each day, Kindergarteners also have a special science lab each week. A large part of the science lab curriculum in Kindergarten is created around the interests of the children in the class. Thus, topics are determined as the year progresses. To start the year, lessons focus on observing birds at the window feeder, learning to identify common feeder birds, and engaging in activities connected to observing nature. The students also have opportunities to grow, and experiment with, plants in the greenhouse.
Espanol
In Kindergarten Español, students explore the Spanish language through a variety of traditional songs, popular songs, folk tales, games, and hands-on learning activities. Students also learn about the diverse cultures and celebrations of countries that speak Spanish by experiencing the music, folklore, literature, symbols, celebrations, and traditions of these countries. This year’s curriculum includes basic greetings (e.g.,”me llamo”, “como estas?”), polite words (e.g.,”cuantos años tengo”, “por favor”, “gracias”), basic classroom expectations (e.g.,”puedo ir al baño?”, “quiero”), parts of the body, numbers 1 to 20, primary colors, shapes, and expressing emotions.
Physical Development
The Kindergarten Physical Development curriculum explores both fine and gross motor skills as well as locomotor skills and balance. Body and space awareness will be taught in both large areas of play and smaller classrooms. Instructional and direction-driven games will be conducted. Adventure Stories will be used to capture students’ excitement and attention to encourage participation and listening. Creativity and imagination will be encouraged as, for example, we balance along obstacle courses, pretending to look for lions and monkeys in the jungle. Students practice rolling or throwing a ball, as to feed the animals by getting the ball into a bucket or knocking down a pin. These classes are age appropriate and lots of fun!
Music
Kindergarten students find the music inside them and find their own way of expressing that musicality. The teacher exposes students to many different genres of music and modes of expression. Students learn two overarching skills: singing in tune and keeping a steady beat. They practice these skills by playing solo singing games and rhythm games. They learn a huge number of songs from a variety of musical traditions, as well as hand movements that go along with the songs. During Group Sing, children are beginning to read the lyrics to the songs we are singing on the big screen. During guided “explore time,” students play various instruments, and the teacher encourages, makes suggestions, and makes observations about whether or not individual students are ready for private lessons. Students study songwriting, usually taking songs they already know and creating new lyrics.
Art
The focus in Kindergarten is an introduction to materials, as well as exposure to new processes and techniques. Emphasis is placed on expression, as well as the development of a basic art language and skills to be built upon throughout the years. Projects include drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics, collage, weaving, and sewing. Students will talk about the intentions of their artwork to classmates. Each student has a sketchbook for class assignments and individual drawing.
Drama
The goal of Creative Drama class for Kindergarten is for children to feel safe enough to explore their imaginations and interact with each other on stage. Students will play theatre games which helps build connections, freedom of physicality and listening skills. Each week the students will be investigating characters and emotions. They will learn how to develop a story to dramatize. At the beginning of the year, the students will participate in improvisational exercises in which each student receives a character and an activity, and then presents it to the group. Then we add emotions to this exercise. This work helps us move into story structure. We explore how stories have a beginning, middle and end, as well as a conflict and resolution. We work on different stories each week. For these dramatizations, we use stories the students have read in class, folktales from various cultures, as well as new stories that are spontaneously created during class.
First Grade
Language Arts
Grade 1 Language Arts emphasizes a balanced literacy experience including reading, writing, phonics, and handwriting practice. Building on the solid foundation from Kindergarten, students develop from beginning readers, decoding simple books with basic spelling patterns, to more complex texts. Phonics work supports each student’s development as they work with blends, digraphs, and vowel patterns, to name a few. Each student practices picking “just right” books, and they begin to identify book types that they love.
As students develop in their understanding of their own reading levels and interests, they participate in whole and small group experiences to read and discuss literature. These “book clubs” are a wonderful chance to begin to develop reading comprehension skills focusing on identifying setting, characters, and plot initially. As the year progresses, students are asked to think more about the books by inferring, connecting, and reflecting on what they are reading. The year ends with a culminating “series book review” project. Some book series students could choose from are: Little Bear, Frog and Toad, Houndsley & Catina, Young Cam Jansen, Bunnicula and Friends, Amelia Bedelia, Pinky and Rex, Fly Guy, Flat Stanley, and Henry and Mudge. Ultimately, the goal is to not only develop each student’s skills as a reader, but to encourage and support his/her love of reading and literature.
Using the best of programs like the Reading and Writing Project, students in Grade 1 expand their writing beyond simple sentences to add detail and complexity. They study different mentor texts during units on informational, narrative, and opinion writing and discuss and incorporate the elements of each separate type of writing into their own work. Basic punctuation and other mechanics such as periods, capitalization, and word spacing are emphasized. Students also begin to explore the revising and editing phase of writing. After meeting with peers and teachers, students revisit their writing and begin to edit to clarify their ideas and writing, fix up punctuation, and begin to focus on spelling, especially sight words. They also have daily handwriting practice using Handwriting Without Tears.
Mathematics
Grade 1 Mathematics takes place throughout each day during classroom routines, investigations and play, as well as during designated math curriculum times. Whenever possible, math learning and skill development evolve from real experiences students have when exploring, problem-solving, or in play. While paper and pencil math experiences are part of math learning in Grade 1, students are just as frequently building understanding and skill by using concrete materials such as cuisenaire rods, unifix cubes, base-ten blocks, pattern blocks, tangrams, and currency. Grade 1 Math cultivates an enthusiasm for math, a playfulness for math, and emphasizes exploring math thinking and strategies as students work to solve problems and build their math skills while experimenting, in play, and during math classes.
The focus for Grade 1 math is:
● additional and subtraction within 100;
● place value up to 100s;
● fractions;
● Two dimensional shapes and three dimensional objects; and
● Units of measurement, including time, money, and distance.
Science
A large part of the Science curriculum in Grade 1 is created around the interests of the children in the class. Thus, topics are determined as the year progresses. To start the year, lessons focus on observing birds at the window feeder, learning to identify common feeder birds, and engaging in activities connected to observing nature. The students have opportunities to grow, and experiment with, plants in the greenhouse. Students interested in writing are encouraged to do so.
Espanol
In Grade 1 Español, students explore the Spanish language through a variety of traditional songs, popular songs, folk tales, games, and hands-on learning activities. Students also learn about the diverse cultures and celebrations of countries that speak Spanish by experiencing the music, folklore, literature, symbols, celebrations, and traditions of these countries. This year’s curriculum includes basic greetings (e.g.,”me llamo, como estas?”), polite words (e.g.,”cuantos años tengo, por favor, gracias”), basic classroom expectations (e.g.,”puedo ir al baño?”, “quiero . . .”), parts of the body, numbers 1 to 20, primary colors, shapes, and expressing emotions.
Physical Development
Beginner sports skills will be introduced in Grade 1, to include proper throwing techniques, rolling a ball with two hands or one, underhand and overhead catching, striking skills, kicking, bouncing and trapping (stopping a ball with a scoop or bucket, even with a foot). Balance and locomotor skills like galloping, skipping, log roll, somersault, jumping, marching, hopping and shuffling will be taught through instruction and applied in fun and engaging games. Team building activities will be introduced to help teach cooperative play. All skills will be taught at very age appropriate and beginner levels and built up from there to ensure understanding and most importantly, building confidence. The goal for this age range is that students go home talking about or showing a skill they have learned. That alone will showcase confidence and the beginning of a healthy and active lifestyle.
Music
Grade 1 students find the music inside them and find their own way of expressing that musicality. The teacher exposes students to many different genres of music and modes of expression. Students learn two overarching skills: singing in tune and keeping a steady beat. They practice these skills by playing solo singing games and rhythm games. They learn a huge number of songs from a variety of musical traditions, as well as hand movements that go along with the songs. During Group Sing, children read the lyrics to the songs we are singing on the big screen. During guided “explore time,” students play various instruments, and the teacher encourages, makes suggestions, and makes observations about whether or not individual students are ready for private lessons. First-grade students often learn a few simple melodies on the piano. Students study songwriting, often taking songs they already know and creating new lyrics. First graders have several opportunities to share their work with an audience.
Art
The focus in Grade 1 is a continued investigation to materials, as well as exposure to new processes and techniques. Emphasis is placed on expression, as well as the development of a basic art language and skills to be built upon throughout the years. Projects include drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics, collage, weaving, and sewing. Students will talk about the intentions of their artwork to classmates. Each student has a sketchbook for class assignments and individual drawing.
Drama
The goal of Creative Drama class for Grade 1 is for children to feel safe enough to explore their imaginations and interact with each other on stage. Students will play theatre games which helps build connections, freedom of physicality and listening skills. Each week the students will be investigating characters and emotions. They will learn how to develop a story to dramatize. At the beginning of the year, the students will participate in improvisational exercises in which each student receives a character and an activity, and then presents it to the group. Then we add emotions to this exercise. This work helps us move into story structure. We explore how stories have a beginning, middle and end, as well as a conflict and resolution. We work on different stories each week. For these dramatizations, we use stories the students have read in class, folktales from various cultures, as well as new stories that are spontaneously create during class.
Second Grade
Language Arts
In Grade 2 Language Arts, students continue to develop the basic skills that form the building blocks for later learning. During these years, one sees the shift from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” Readers further develop their word attack strategies as they move toward reading fluently and with expression. The focus shifts from decoding to comprehension, and students are asked to summarize, predict, recognize cause and effect, and character development, and begin to infer with the help of context clues. As writers, our Grade 2 students write personal narratives, stories, and poetry, and they respond to reading comprehension questions that develop and demonstrate deep understanding. Students also learn basic parts of speech – nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs – using hands-on materials, and they “build” sentences with these materials before they are asked to apply these rules to their writing. As listeners and speakers, students are asked to follow basic directions, paraphrase information, and recount experiences or retell stories in a logical sequence. In addition, cursive handwriting is introduced in Grade 2 using the program Handwriting Without Tears, which mirrors our educational pedagogy.
Texts may include: the Frog and Toad series, Mouse Tales, the Nate the Great series, The King’s Equal, My Father’s Dragon, grade-level biographies and other informational texts.
Mathematics
Mathematics experiences in Grade 2 are woven into everyday routines and practices in the center while also being part of conversation and play. In addition, students participate in daily 40-minutes class sessions, where they construct meaning across a range of math concepts as they progress from the concrete (with manipulatives) to a representational world (of pictures), before demonstrating the ability to work with math ideas in their more abstract forms. FIRST IN MATH (FIM) is an online tool we use for exploration, self-guided practice and math enrichment.
The focus for the Grade 2 year is to:
● develop number sense through frequent experiences and a variety of concrete materials;
● build understanding of place value to the 1000s and base ten operations;
● achieve fluency with addition and subtraction math facts (to 20);
● conduct surveys and present conclusions in graphical forms;
● work confidently with units of measure such as money, time and distance; and
● investigate and problem-solve with two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional objects.
Science
A large part of the Science curriculum for Grade 2 is created around the interests of the children in the class. Thus, topics are determined as the year progresses. To start the year, lessons focus on observing birds at the window feeder, learning to identify common feeder birds, and engaging in activities connected to observing nature. The students have opportunities to grow, and experiment with, plants in the greenhouse. The Grade 2 curriculum encourages them to record their observations with a combination of sketching, writing, and data collection. As the year progresses, they keep a written record of other topics covered.
Espanol
In Grade 2 Español, students are exposed to the language, customs and festivities of Spanish speaking countries through a number of media such as authentic songs, popular songs, and authentic literature or poetry. Students learn through games and hands-on learning activities. The curriculum mimics, whenever possible, the social studies curriculum. This year’s curriculum includes vocabulary related to the family, the house, food, clothing, the weather and seasons. Particular attention is given to festivities and holidays of Spanish speaking countries through the creation of crafts and projects.
Physical Development
Beginner sports skills will continue to be introduced in Grade 2, which includes proper throwing techniques, rolling a ball with two hands or one, underhand and overhead catching, striking skills, kicking, bouncing and trapping (stopping a ball with a scoop or bucket, even with a foot). Also 2- to 3-step instructions on how to complete a proper manipulative or motor skill will be taught and practiced to ensure proper technique. Balance and locomotor skills like galloping, skipping, log roll, somersault, jumping, marching, hopping and shuffling will be taught through instruction and applied in fun and engaging games. Team building activities will be introduced to help teach cooperative play. Sportsmanship and understanding how to be a gracious winner and how to cope properly when you do not win, will always be reinforced in all classes. All skills will be taught at very age appropriate and beginner levels and built up from there to ensure understanding and most importantly, building confidence. The goal for this age range is that students go home talking about or showing a skill they have learned. That alone will showcase confidence and the beginning of a healthy and active lifestyle.
Music
Grade 2 students find the music inside them and find their own way of expressing that musicality. The teacher exposes students to many different genres of music and modes of expression. Students learn two overarching skills: singing in tune and keeping a steady beat. They practice these skills by playing solo singing games and rhythm games. They learn a huge number of songs from a variety of musical traditions, as well as hand movements that go along with the songs. During Group Sing, children read the lyrics to the songs we are singing on the big screen. During guided “explore time,” students play various instruments, and the teacher encourages, makes suggestions, and makes observations about whether or not individual students are ready for private lessons. Second-grade students often learn a few simple melodies on the piano.
At this age, students are introduced to musical notation by playing interactive note-reading games. Students study songwriting, sometimes taking songs they already know and adding new lyrics, and sometimes beginning to experiment with creating original melodies as well. Second graders have several opportunities to share their work with an audience.
Art
The focus in Grade 2 is a continued investigation to materials, as well as exposure to new processes and techniques. Emphasis is placed on expression, as well as the development of a basic art language and skills to be built upon throughout the years. Projects include drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics, collage, weaving, and sewing. Students will talk about the intentions of their artwork to classmates. Each student has a sketchbook for class assignments and individual drawing.
Drama
Theatreworks class gives Grade 2 students a solid foundation for theatre arts at Mead. Students learn the fundamentals of improvisation, in order to learn a particular style of theatre, but also to learn basic foundations of acting technique. Students focus on learning to be part of an ensemble on stage and the differences between cooperation and collaboration. Students focus a great deal on the skill of receiving, which forms the basis of all offers onstage. We move onto exploring the elements of a scene in a play, its structure and format, and also investigating the elements in playmaking.
Third Grade
Language Arts
In Grade 3 Language Arts, students read a variety of increasingly complex texts and examine setting, plot, characters, conflict, and resolution, with a focus on using context clues to find the meaning of unfamiliar words. Comprehension questions become more complex as well and require increased inference and perspective-taking. The program emphasizes writing fluency and skill, and students actively practice the basic components of the writing process:
● brainstorming – often using graphic organizers;
● writing a first draft;
● revising for content; and
● editing—including grammar, spelling, and mechanics.
Students practice writing paragraphs with topic and closing sentences and relevant detail, completing two and three-paragraph literary reviews. They write personal narratives and poetry, and they study multiple poetic forms. Students build upon past grammar instruction and diagram sentences to solidify understanding of proper sentence construction. Simple and compound sentences are studied, and students are expected to use a variety of sentence structures – with proper use of punctuation and mechanics, including ending punctuation, commas, semicolons, capitalizing, etc. – in their written work. As listeners and speakers, students read their work aloud, respond to and ask questions, make and share connections, compare and contrast story elements, and discuss points of view. 3rd graders are taught cursive handwriting using the program Handwriting Without Tears, which mirrors our educational pedagogy.
Texts may include: Freckle Juice, Frindle, The World According to Humphrey, The Magic Finger, The One and Only Ivan, Clementine, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Charlotte’s Web, grade-level biographies and other informational texts.
Mathematics
The Grade 3 Mathematics experience continues to construct meaning across a range of math concepts as students progress from the concrete (with manipulatives) to a representational world (of pictures) before demonstrating the ability to work with math ideas more abstract forms.
The focus for Grade 3 is to:
● build understanding of number sense as it relates to place value to the 1000s;
● extend fluency with addition and subtraction math facts to adding and subtracting two- and three-digit numbers;
● develop understanding of and fluency with multiplication and division facts;
● develop understanding of fractions as equal parts of a whole;
● explore the attributes of two-dimensional and three-dimensional shapes;
● utilize multiplication skills to explore area and perimeter of rectangles through the use of square units;
● confidently read time to the nearest minute and calculate time intervals;
● measure length to the nearest ½ inch, ¼ inch, cm, and mm; and
● collect, record, and interpret data using a variety of methods.
FIRST IN MATH is an online tool used for math facts assessment (grades 3-8), self-guided practice, and math enrichment. Other math resources include: engageny, Math Mammoth, and MyMath by McGraw Hill.
Science
The Grades 3 and 4 science curriculum follows a biennial format; one year is “Investigators” and the next is “Space.”
Investigators is a hands-on course designed to introduce students to many of the subjects within science as well as to the procedures used in scientific investigations. Classes are a combination of lab activities, reading, and discussions. Students continue to hone the scientific observation and note-taking skills begun in the K-1-2 curriculum. They also begin working on the skills of basic notetaking and writing to express their findings. Through the year, several different units or topics are covered, some of which investigate “pure” sciences (such as chemistry), and some of which follow a theme which requires the use of many different scientific disciplines (such as forensic science, when students work together to solve a mystery by examining the clues left for them). Subjects covered come from a survey given to students at the start of the year and may include birds & migration, chemistry, electricity and magnetism, microscopy, forensic science, earth science (rocks, minerals & fossils). and solar energy.
Space follows the trimester calendar with three separate but related units: Outer Space and the Universe; Astronauts and Living in Space; and Rockets. A combination of hands-on activities, discussions, and presentations allows students to discover more about the topics they vote on at the start of the year. These topics include: origins of the Universe, galaxies, stars and our solar system; humans living and working in the weightless environment of space (including the need for exercise and good nutrition), and how spacesuits help humans survive in the cold vacuum of space; and, finally, how rockets fly, including lessons in Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion and aerodynamics. The rocketry unit includes hands-on experimentation in “indoor rocket” design and flight tests. In this curriculum, students work on the skills of basic note taking and writing to express their findings.
Espanol
Third grade is the transition between the Centers, which brings a shift in language instruction. In Grade 3 Español, students are introduced to basic reading and writing in many ways, including word puzzles or creating labels for objects in or outside of the classroom. Grammar is presented sequentially and acquired through consistent and repeated exposure. Students focus attention to the festivities and traditions important in Hispanic culture. The curriculum still follows a thematic approach, and it is inspired by students’ emerging and evolving interests. The main question we answer is “Who (and how) am I, and who (and how) are the people around me?” By the end of the year, students are able to ask what someone’s name is and respond, describe themselves, discuss their age, color of their hair and eyes, and describe family members in relation to themselves. Students begin to study conjugations in the present tense, identify school objects, use common prepositions, and learn vocabulary about animals.
Texts may include: Teach Them SPANISH 3.
Physical Development
The Physical Development Curriculum consists of four areas when entering Grade 3: Team Sports, Beginner Fitness, Team Building Activities and New Sport Exposure to emphasize overall Healthy Lifestyle patterns. As in all curriculum areas, each child’s learning is observed in relation to Mead’s Seven School Skills: TO THINK, TO INTUIT, TO IMAGINE, TO RECEIVE, TO ACT, TO EXPRESS, TO RESPECT.
Team Sports – The primary objective of this activity is to allow each child the opportunity to experience being a member of a team. Practicing individual and group skills and learning to face the challenges of game situations are important aspects of this experience. Soccer, basketball and softball are offered as the primary sports with games scheduled against other schools our size. All students have the opportunity to participate in games. Game Rules, Sportsmanship, Fair Play and “doing your best” are highly reinforced.
Beginner Fitness – Classes offer a unique opportunity for students to work on coordination, agility, balance, cardiovascular endurance and muscle strength using their own body weight. Hand-eye and foot-eye coordination, movement, spatial awareness, force, energy, anatomy and physiology will all be learned through Beginner Fitness. Individual challenges are presented. These classes will help students learn how the body can create force to control speed and strength while pushing themselves to limits they never knew they could. Confidence may be built in a way they’ve never experienced.
Team Building – Through team formatted activities, students will learn the importance of working in a team environment including how to cooperate with others and how to compromise to get to a goal. Adaptivity and creativeness will be widely used to reach activity goals and to learn how to solve issues in more than just one manner. Positive reinforcement and encouragement among peers will be reiterated. Team competition will be present, as well as reaching goals as an entire class.
New Sport Exposure – This will be a great opportunity for students to experience new sports. Some sports that will be implemented include: Volleyball, Badminton, Cricket, Cross Country and more traditional sports like Flag Football and Hockey. Students will be able to try sports that they never have before while applying skills learned through previous Physical Development experiences.
Music
In Grade 3, students learn musical notation. Through their study of the soprano recorder, students learn how to read notes and rhythms, and they learn sensitivity and dynamics. All students in Grade 3 study the handbells: in larger groups, these children learn important rhythmic and ensemble skills as they work on complex handbell arrangements and then perform them in front of an audience. In songwriting, students learn about song structure, and their compositions begin to get more sophisticated. Grade 3 students spend a significant amount of time playing many different instruments, including the drum kit, on which they learn a basic rock beat. They learn to sing many songs, and there is a classical unit during which they learn about musical periods and important composers. Children have many opportunities to share their work in front of an audience, and overcoming stage fright is an important aspect of the Grade 3 curriculum.
Art
The focus of Grade 3 will be a hands-on exploration of familiar materials, as well as exposure to new processes and techniques. Emphasis will be placed on expression, as well as the development of a basic art language to be built upon throughout the years. Open Studio Times are available for students to come into the Art Center to work independently.
Grade 3 Art curriculum follows a biennial format.
Year (A)
● Baroque Figures – students design an ornate figure with decorative lines;
● Perspective Drawing –2 and 3 point perspective;
● Color mixing/Color theory- painting Shady Snakes and Tinted Flowers;
● Advertisement – eye catching posters with a silly twist;
● Clay – pinch pots, coil and slab building techniques making a Tea Light Owl;
● Sewing- machine sewing aprons, vests and hats to wear on the Oregon Trail;
● Piñatas – additive sculpture in paper;
● Picasso Portraits- Cubism and the 4th dimension;
● Pointillism – Impressionistic paintings in the style of George Seurat; and
● Personal sketchbook – class assignments, note-taking and individual journeying.
Year (B)
● Line Castles – building a picture with basic shapes and lines;
● Shape Monsters – inspired by Where the Wild Things Are;
● Color mixing/color theory – Compass Circles;
● Eric Carle – paint and shape animal collages;
● Beaver Pond – a painting that illustrates the beaver’s home;
● Mars Landscape – students paint a monochromatic landscape of Mars;
● Paper Animals – papier-mache animals;
● Advertisement – eye catching posters;
● Sewing – finger puppets and stuffed animals;
● Weaving – wrapped coil basket, potholder, wooden basket;
● Clay – pinch pots, coil and slab building techniques; and
● Wood – String Art Boats.
Drama
Grades 3 and 4 Drama curriculum offers an introduction to the world of play creation. The students can determine if they wish to learn the more formal elements of play production, or enjoy the more immediate and spontaneous climate of dramatic play, as they build a story of their own making into a piece of theatre on the stage. Students will also be exposed to formal plays and learn the fundamentals of memorizing lines and blocking. Learning how to be completely present onstage and available to your scene partners is one of the most important skills in drama and forms the core values in the art of receiving for this curriculum.
Fourth Grade
Language Arts
In Grade 4, students actively read a wide range of literary styles and texts; build fluency and expression; identify the main idea, rising conflict, and resolution; visualize; summarize; draw conclusions; make inferences, predictions, and connections; build vocabulary; identify figurative language. Students support their thinking with evidence from the text, and they express their ideas and listen to those of others during class discussions.
As writers, 4th grade students are asked to create both narrative and expository pieces with a focus on sentence structure; building paragraphs with strong topic sentences, supporting details, and closing sentences that transition the reader to the next paragraph; introductions including a clear thesis statement; and concluding paragraphs. Revision and editing – including peer editing – are also emphasized as critical steps along the journey to become excellent writers. As speakers, students are asked to voice their opinions while making room for the opinions of others; read work aloud; respond to and ask questions; make and share connections, predictions, and other insights.
Building upon the parts of speech learned in past years, students tackle prepositions, objects of prepositions, linking verbs, predicate nouns and adjectives, action verbs, direct and indirect objects, and subordinating conjunctions. Students study complex sentences in addition to simple and compound sentences. Students are expected to incorporate all grammar instruction – taught using many methods, including sentence diagramming – consistently into their written work. Word Voyage, an online program focusing on root meanings and word cousins, challenges students to develop a rich and varied vocabulary and practice proper grammar and usage.
Texts may include: Seedfolks, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Tales from the Odyssey, Love That Dog, Hate That Cat, Marley: A Dog Like No Other, The One and Only Ivan, Tales of Despereaux, Riding Freedom; A Wrinkle in Time, Glencoe LA – Grammar Usage & Mechanics.
Mathematics
The Grade 4 Mathematics experience largely focuses on fluency. Fluency means an individual can perform skills and solve problems efficiently (i.e., with speed and accuracy) without teacher support. Students in Grade 4 work toward fluency across a range of elementary math concepts appropriate to their readiness and personal goals. At this level, students engage in experiences that progress from the concrete (with manipulatives), to the representational (pictures), to more abstract forms.
The focus for Grade 4 is to:
● connect the structure of the place value system through hundred thousand as it relates to multiplicative comparison (base ten operations); ● extend fluency of addition and subtraction math facts to larger numbers;
● use place value understanding to inform multidigit multiplication using different strategies;
● explore factors and divisibility as they relate to division with one-digit divisors, with or without remainders, using the standard algorithms (long division);
● understand fraction equivalence and explore operations (addition and subtraction) of like fractions and mixed numbers;
● extend place value knowledge to confidently add and subtract numbers to two-decimal digits;
● confidently calculate area and perimeter of rectangles;
● explore angles as it relates to lines, rays, and line segments; and
● explore measurement in length, weight, and volume (US customary and metric).
FIRST IN MATH is an online tool used for math facts assessment (grades 3-8), self-guided practice, and math enrichment. Other math resources include: engageny, Math Mammoth, MyMath by McGraw Hill.
Science
The Grades 3 and 4 science curriculum follows a biennial format; one year is “Investigators” and the next is “Space.”
Investigators is a hands-on course designed to introduce students to many of the subjects within science as well as to the procedures used in scientific investigations. Classes are a combination of lab activities, reading, and discussions. Students continue to hone the scientific observation and note-taking skills begun in the K-1-2 curriculum. They also begin working on the skills of basic notetaking and writing to express their findings. Through the year, several different units or topics are covered, some of which investigate “pure” sciences (such as chemistry), and some of which follow a theme which requires the use of many different scientific disciplines (such as forensic science, when students work together to solve a mystery by examining the clues left for them). Subjects covered come from a survey given to students at the start of the year and may include birds & migration, chemistry, electricity and magnetism, microscopy, forensic science, earth science (rocks, minerals & fossils). and solar energy.
Space follows the trimester calendar with three separate but related units: Outer Space and the Universe; Astronauts and Living in Space; and Rockets. A combination of hands-on activities, discussions, and presentations allows students to discover more about the topics they vote on at the start of the year. These topics include: origins of the Universe, galaxies, stars and our solar system; humans living and working in the weightless environment of space (including the need for exercise and good nutrition), and how spacesuits help humans survive in the cold vacuum of space; and, finally, how rockets fly, including lessons in Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion and aerodynamics. The rocketry unit includes hands-on experimentation in “indoor rocket” design and flight tests. In this curriculum, students work on the skills of basic note taking and writing to express their findings.
Espanol
In Grade 4 Español, students continue working on the skills needed to become more comfortable in speaking, reading, and writing. Hands-on activities such as the creation of posters, comics, songs, and role playing facilitate a love for language learning. Grammar is presented sequentially and acquired through consistent and repeated exposure. Students focus attention to the festivities and traditions important in Hispanic culture. The main questions we answer are, “How is the world around me? How are other countries different from mine? What animals live there? How do people dress there? Who are some famous people coming from countries where Spanish is spoken? What are the cities in these countries?” Topics studied include subject pronouns, possessive adjectives, commands and expressions, describe a house and a city, order a meal, express likes and dislikes, compare and contrast Spanish speaking countries, cities, and people to those of the United States.
Texts may include: “Teach Them SPANISH 4.
Physical Development
The Physical Development Curriculum consists of four areas when entering Grade 3: Team Sports, Beginner Fitness, Team Building Activities and New Sport Exposure to emphasize overall Healthy Lifestyle patterns. As in all curriculum areas, each child’s learning is observed in relation to Mead’s Seven School Skills: TO THINK, TO INTUIT, TO IMAGINE, TO RECEIVE, TO ACT, TO EXPRESS, TO RESPECT.
Team Sports – The primary objective of this activity is to allow each child the opportunity to experience being a member of a team. Practicing individual and group skills and learning to face the challenges of game situations are important aspects of this experience. Soccer, basketball and softball are offered as the primary sports with games scheduled against other schools our size. All students have the opportunity to participate in games. Game Rules, Sportsmanship, Fair Play and “doing your best” are highly reinforced.
Beginner Fitness – Classes offer a unique opportunity for students to work on coordination, agility, balance, cardiovascular endurance and muscle strength using their own body weight. Hand-eye and foot-eye coordination, movement, spatial awareness, force, energy, anatomy and physiology will all be learned through Beginner Fitness. Individual challenges are presented. These classes will help students learn how the body can create force to control speed and strength while pushing themselves to limits they never knew they could. Confidence may be built in a way they’ve never experienced.
Team Building – Through team formatted activities, students will learn the importance of working in a team environment including how to cooperate with others and how to compromise to get to a goal. Adaptivity and creativeness will be widely used to reach activity goals and to learn how to solve issues in more than just one manner. Positive reinforcement and encouragement among peers will be reiterated. Team competition will be present, as well as reaching goals as an entire class.
New Sport Exposure – This will be a great opportunity for students to experience new sports. Some sports that will be implemented include: Volleyball, Badminton, Cricket, Cross Country and more traditional sports like Flag Football and Hockey. Students will be able to try sports that they never have before while applying skills learned through previous Physical Development experiences.
Music
In Grade 4, students continue their study of musical notation. Students learn how to read notes and rhythms, and they learn sensitivity and dynamics. Beginning in Grade 4, Recorder Ensemble is an elective that is available to them; in this rigorous, exciting mixed-age class, they study classical music, work on reading music, and perform a number of times throughout the year. All students in Grade 4 study the handbells: in larger groups, these children learn important rhythmic and ensemble skills as they work on complex handbell arrangements and then perform them in front of an audience. In songwriting, students learn about song structure, and their compositions become more sophisticated. Grade 4 students spend a significant amount of time playing many different instruments, including the drum kit, on which they learn various beats. They learn to sing many songs, and there is a classical unit during which they learn about musical periods and important composers. Children have many opportunities to share their work in front of an audience, and overcoming stage fright is a big part of the Grade 4 curriculum.
Art
The focus of Grade 4 will be hands-on exploration of familiar materials, as well as exposure to new processes and techniques. Emphasis will be placed on expression, as well as the development of a basic art language to be built upon throughout the years. Open Studio Times are available for students to come into the Art Center to work independently.
Grade 4 Art curriculum follows a biennial format.
Year (A)
● Baroque Figures – students design an ornate figure with decorative lines;
● Perspective Drawing –2 and 3 point perspective;
● Color mixing/Color theory- painting Shady Snakes and Tinted Flowers;
● Advertisement – eye catching posters with a silly twist;
● Clay – pinch pots, coil and slab building techniques making a Tea Light Owl;
● Sewing- machine sewing aprons, vests and hats to wear on the Oregon Trail;
● Piñatas – additive sculpture in paper;
● Picasso Portraits- Cubism and the 4th dimension;
● Pointillism – Impressionistic paintings in the style of George Seurat; and
● Personal sketchbook – class assignments, notetaking and individual journeying.
Year (B)
● Line Castles – building a picture with basic shapes and lines;
● Shape Monsters – inspired by Where the Wild Things Are;
● Color mixing/color theory – Compass Circles;
● Eric Carle – paint and shape animal collages;
● Beaver Pond – a painting that illustrates the beaver’s home;
● Mars Landscape – students paint a monochromatic landscape of Mars;
● Paper Animals – papier-mache animals;
● Advertisement – eye catching posters;
● Sewing – finger puppets and stuffed animals;
● Weaving – wrapped coil basket, potholder, wooden basket;
● Clay – pinch pots, coil and slab building techniques; and
● Wood – String Art Boats.
Drama
Grades 3 and 4 Drama curriculum offers an introduction to the world of play creation. The students can determine if they wish to learn the more formal elements of play production, or enjoy the more immediate and spontaneous climate of dramatic play, as they build a story of their own making into a piece of theatre on the stage. Students will also be exposed to formal plays and learn the fundamentals of memorizing lines and blocking. Learning how to be completely present onstage and available to your scene partners is one of the most important skills in drama and forms the core values in the art of receiving for this curriculum.
Fifth Grade
Language Arts
As they progress along the continuum, students are stretched to find deeper, layered meaning in a text, with an emphasis on analyzing an author’s craft –identifying theme, tone, character development, and the use of various literary devices and other techniques. Reading assignments are longer, and comprehension questions probe for more complex contemplation and perspective-taking and responses that are consistently supported by text evidence.
As writers in 5th grade, students are asked to create both narrative and expository pieces using all aspects of the writing process: brainstorming, using graphic organizers; outlining; writing a first draft; revising for content; and editing for grammar, mechanics, and spelling. Increasingly sophisticated sentence structures are expected, and students consistently are asked to incorporate new grammar and mechanics learning into their written work. The five-paragraph, rhetorical argument essay is introduced, with an emphasis on the overall flow and build of one’s well-supported argument. Writers are reminded that excellent writing truly comes together during the revision and editing phases – including peer editing. As speakers, students are asked to voice their opinions while making room for the views of others, read work aloud, respond to and ask questions, make and share connections.
Word Voyage, an online program focusing on root meanings and word cousins, challenges students to develop a rich and varied vocabulary and practice proper grammar and usage.
Texts may include: The Phantom Tollbooth; Wonder; Inside Out and Back Again; Seedfolks; Marley: A Dog Like No Other; Bud, Not Buddy; Esperanza Rising; Out of the Dust; Flipped; Bridge to Terabithia.
Mathematics
The Grade 5 Mathematics experience continues to focus on fluency. Fluency means an individual can perform skills and solve problems efficiently (i.e., with speed and accuracy) without teacher support. Students in Grade 5 work toward fluency across a range of elementary math concepts appropriate to their readiness and personal goals. At this level, students engage in experiences that progress from the concrete (with manipulatives), to the representational (pictures), to more abstract forms.
The focus for Grade 5 is to:
● work confidently with the place value system through billion including addition and subtraction operations;
● use efficient algorithms for multiplication and division of multi-digit numbers;
● extend place value knowledge to confidently add and subtract numbers to three-decimal digits, and multiply and divide (decimal by decimal);
● explore addition and subtraction of like and unlike fractions;
● explore multiplying fractions and mixed numbers, as well as dividing unit fractions and dividing by unit fractions;
● investigate, measure accurately (customary and metric), and solve problems involving perimeter, area, and volume; and
● record and use data to calculate mean, median, and mode, and to represent data graphically using a variety of methods.
FIRST IN MATH is an online tool used for math facts assessment (grades 3-8), self-guided practice, and math enrichment. Other math resources include: engageny, Math Mammoth, MyMath by McGraw Hill.
Science
Human Body introduces students to the workings of the body’s systems (skeletal, muscular, circulatory, etc.), and shows how they are all connected. Emphasis is on how understanding the workings of one’s own body can help in making healthy choices.
Classes are a combination of discussions, demonstrations, note-taking and research, and are based on the questions the students ask at the start of the school year. Labs offer hands-on choice activities such as surveys of the Mead population, working with the computer and digital lab equipment, doing experiments and other activities to investigate how body processes operate, etc.
Weekly homework includes activities to help students find ways to apply the concepts to their own lives, such as nutrition lessons via “food diaries,” and readings from selected texts about each body system with accompanying questions to point students toward pertinent information. Students continue the skill work of written expression and note-taking.
Espanol
In Grade 5 Español, students continue working on the skills needed to become more comfortable in speaking, reading, and writing. Hands-on activities such as the creation of posters, comics, songs, and role playing are used to facilitate a love for language learning. Grammar is presented sequentially and acquired through consistent and repeated exposure. Students focus attention to the festivities and traditions important in Hispanic culture. Topics studied include prepositions, tú vs usted, possessive adjectives, present tense of –ar, -er, and -ir verbs, describing feelings using expressions with ‘tener’, and vocabulary related to chores and other activities around the house, towns, buildings, and countries, and telling time.
Texts may include: Teach Them SPANISH 5.
Physical Development
The Physical Development Curriculum consists of four areas when entering Grade 3: Team Sports, Beginner Fitness, Team Building Activities and New Sport Exposure to emphasize overall Healthy Lifestyle patterns. As in all curriculum areas, each child’s learning is observed in relation to Mead’s Seven School Skills: TO THINK, TO INTUIT, TO IMAGINE, TO RECEIVE, TO ACT, TO EXPRESS, TO RESPECT.
Team Sports – The primary objective of this activity is to allow each child the opportunity to experience being a member of a team. Practicing individual and group skills and learning to face the challenges of game situations are important aspects of this experience. Soccer, basketball and softball are offered as the primary sports with games scheduled against other schools our size. All students have the opportunity to participate in games. Game Rules, Sportsmanship, Fair Play and “doing your best” are highly reinforced.
Beginner Fitness – Classes offer a unique opportunity for students to work on coordination, agility, balance, cardiovascular endurance and muscle strength using their own body weight. Hand-eye and foot-eye coordination, movement, spatial awareness, force, energy, anatomy and physiology will all be learned through Beginner Fitness. Individual challenges are presented. These classes will help students learn how the body can create force to control speed and strength while pushing themselves to limits they never knew they could. Confidence may be built in a way they’ve never experienced.
Team Building – Through team formatted activities, students will learn the importance of working in a team environment including how to cooperate with others and how to compromise to get to a goal. Adaptivity and creativeness will be widely used to reach activity goals and to learn how to solve issues in more than just one manner. Positive reinforcement and encouragement among peers will be reiterated. Team competition will be present, as well as reaching goals as an entire class.
New Sport Exposure – This will be a great opportunity for students to experience new sports. Some sports that will be implemented include: Volleyball, Badminton, Cricket, Cross Country and more traditional sports like Flag Football and Hockey. Students will be able to try sports that they never have before while applying skills learned through previous Physical Development experiences.
Music
In Grade 5, students take Introduction to Winds and Horns; they have a choice of studying the flute, clarinet, saxophone or trumpet. Students expand on their study of musical notation through sight-reading. In addition to sensitivity and dynamics, they learn the mechanics of basic technique such as proper embouchure and breathing. Recorder Ensemble is an elective that is available to these students as well; in this rigorous, exciting mixed-age class, they study classical music, work on reading music, and perform a number of times throughout the year. Beginning in Grade 5, choral singing is an option: in Serious Singers, students practice vocal harmony as they learn songs from a variety of musical traditions; while singing, they also learn important ensemble skills and breathing technique. Sound Tech is another curriculum available to some Grade 5 students. In Tech, children learn how to use and maintain our sound equipment in the auditorium and the Music Room, and they run our performances by being a Soundboard Operator or a member of the Backstage Crew. Children have many opportunities to share their work in front of an audience, no matter what instrument they play; stage presence and learning how to perform effectively is a big part of the Grade 5 curriculum.
Art
The focus of Grade 5 is hands-on exploration of familiar materials, as well as exposure to new processes and techniques. The goal is for students to build their skills while working towards individual goals, conceptual thinking and self-expression. Open Studio Times are available for students to come into the Art Center to work independently.
● Facial Features – Rendering eyes, a nose and mouth using warm and cool colors;
● Facial Proportions – Drawing the human head in correct proportions and locations of its features; film and internet-based tools to further learning.
● Self Portrait – Drawing a likeness with the use of a mirror;
● Ceramic Figures – Expression through the figure;
● Monoprint – Single impress of an image;
● Postage Stamp Prints – Students design their own postage stamp, carve a linoleum block and reproduce 20 prints;
● Enameling – Design pendants by fusing glass in a kiln;
● Collage – Investigating the work of Romare Bearden;
● Crayon Mosaics – Ancient art in everyday materials;
● Clay – Pinch pots, coil and slab building techniques, and glaze application; and
● Personal Sketchbook – Class assignments, note-taking and individual journeying.
Drama
Grade 5 Drama curriculum invites students to explore all aspects of play production. These students will work on a play, which they create and write or adapt themselves. Students explore what collaboration means and practice using cooperation as a stepping- stone to the more difficult skill of collaborating to create art. Students also learn how to break down a play into its creative elements and structure. Added to that are the production job categories like set, prop, and costume design and the value/ responsibility of each position or “part” to the “whole” of the production. Each student has a production job in addition to his/her acting responsibilities. Through this, they experience interdependence as well as the impact that their choices have on their product. This is a workshop and may not transform into a parent-ready performance.
The Mead School Light Tech program is multiyear program with the main goal being that each tech student will learn and have experience in all aspects of theatrical backstage and lighting production. Students will learn stage management skills, how to program and run a lightboard, as well as how to use and run a spotlight. The Mead School tech student takes on the responsibility of all backstage and technical aspects for the productions on our main stage