lower school

From the pervasive love of our Lower School Library, to the joyful classroom reading and writing celebrations, the rich culture of reading and writing at Friends is palpable. As students emerge as readers in the primary grades, they learn skills and strategies through whole-class and small-group lessons, and through individual instruction that meet a range of learners where they are. 

Early on, students pivot from learning to read to reading to learn.

• The foundation of our literacy program in the early grades includes explicit encoding and decoding instruction through Fundations, reading groups, and word study utilizing Structured Word Inquiry.
• We engage our students in inquiry-based lessons to teach the skills necessary to read and write well through the workshop-style of teaching, engaging children as authentic readers and writers. We use these as a tool to deepen our understanding of ourselves and others, through the framework of windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors. 
• Early on, students pivot from learning to read to reading to learn. We instruct students in research-based methods of comprehending and retaining information, as well as guiding students to think critically about their resources and develop skills around synthesizing information.
• We use our writing skills as a tool of change, writing essays and persuasive speeches to advocate for change in their classroom, school, and wider community, developing their writing voice as they learn to take risks and seek purpose in their writing.

Our math program allows students to investigate and explore mathematics in a hands-on, multisensory program. Our approach is constructivist; through experience, children build their understanding of mathematical ideas. We embrace an approach called ‘teaching through problem solving’, and our aim is to develop creative mathematicians with a strong growth mindset. We know that we must teach the foundations of mathematical thinking often within a context, bringing children to real understanding while learning discrete arithmetic skills consistently along the way. 

Our approach is constructivist; through experience, children build their understanding of mathematical ideas. 

• We engage students in inquiry-based math lessons that utilize the workshop method of teaching math through the Contexts for Learning curriculum. Starting with our youngest students, learners are treated as authentic mathematicians. We provide opportunities for concrete, contextually meaningful experiences through which learners search for patterns, raise questions, and discover strategies to help them solve problems.
• As mathematicians attend conferences and congresses to present and defend their theories, our mathematicians engage in a Math Congress, where learners model, interpret, and defend their strategies and ideas. The class community engages in discourse, interpretation, justification, and reflection of the presented methods.
• We implement class conversations around mathematical patterns, strategies, and concepts through Number Corner and Number Strings guided by Bridges in Mathematics, in order to bolster students’ mental modeling of mathematical sequences.
• We facilitate student collaboration, strategic mathematical thinking, problem solving, and computational fluency through mathematically rich games.

The science program encourages students to think like scientists—asking questions, participating in investigations, and formulating concepts about the way the world works. It is both hands-on and minds-in, and often integrated with other disciplines, like social studies, writing, reading, art and math. Discourse in science is part of the learning, as students begin to see that there is often more than one way to approach and solve problems.

Students gain confidence as authentic scientists, intrinsically seeking deeper understanding.

• We engage our students in phenomenon-based learning modules, which begin with a “phenomenon”: an attention-grabbing image or video clip that piques students' innate curiosity and inquisitiveness. 
• Students develop complex ideas and authentic questions to guide their inquiry, utilizing the scientific method: observing, asking a question, forming a hypothesis, making a prediction based on the hypothesis, testing the prediction, and then iterating (using the results to make new hypotheses or predictions).
• Through this method, students gain confidence as authentic scientists, designing their own experiments and intrinsically seeking deeper understanding.

In social studies, learning about a diversity of communities and cultures is approached with attention to issues of stewardship, justice, and equity. The emphases are participation, experience, and critical thinking. Strong community partnerships are also part of our integrated social studies curriculum; students begin their exploration of neighborhood businesses and organizations, building mutually beneficial partnerships in service to understanding the communities we live in.

Learning about a diversity of communities and cultures is approached with attention to issues of stewardship, justice and equity. 

• Social studies expands out in concentric circles; students study the diversity of the Friends community, and communities close to them, how social systems work, and then engage in a broader study of California history in the third and fourth grade. 
• Children in the lower school have many field trips around the Bay Area, from farms to the ocean, the symphony to the Santa Cruz Mountains, integrating disciplines of science and the arts into their studies. 

Our co-curricular programs share our same core principles. Students are supported in developing healthy habits of mind and body, while engaging in hard work, individual projects, and collaboration. The arts department is made up of professional artists/educators who believe that experiencing the arts, from creation to reflection, is an essential part of the development of individuals and communities.

Students begin to identify as artists starting on their first day. 

• The classroom is treated as an artist workshop, where students identify as artists beginning on their first day.
• The essential questions are:
  • Why do we make art?
  • What is art?
  • What is an artist? 
  • How am I an artist?
  • What is the relationship between art, justice, and action?
• Art is integrated into the grade-level curriculum throughout the school.

We believe that music is part of a life well lived. One of the central tenets that drives and guides the our music pedagogy is the idea that every student is creative and full of potential. At the heart of the lower school music program is joyful participation. Our approach to music making is active, and all students participate in a variety of experiences throughout their years here. 

At the heart of the lower school music program is joyful participation. 

• We use instruments that are accessible to all students and provide the opportunity for exploration of musical elements through collaborative music making. For example, using xylophones and ukuleles gives students a tangible vehicle to understand how sound is made visible using music notation. Playing these instruments together in an ensemble strengthens our Quaker values of community and equality.
• The curriculum is inspired by the philosophies of Orff, Kodaly, and Dalcroze and guided by The National Core Arts Standards: Create, Perform, Respond, and Connect.
• Student experiences range from instruction in movement, singing, games, and dramatic play, to improvising, composing, formal and informal performances in singing, and more.

We teach Spanish early and often. Children have classes each week with a heritage speaker and are exposed to Spanish in our community in a variety of ways. The LS Spanish curriculum is based on TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) Methods, which focus on using interactive, co-created oral stories, readings and novels that contain the most commonly-used words and phrases in Spanish. The LS Spanish program meets the needs of all learners -- students come in at all levels and progress through levels at various pacing. With two teachers and a differentiated program, we tend to speaking, listening, reading and writing skills across all levels -- basic, intermediate and advanced students. Teachers seek opportunities to differentiate to meet the range of learners, and to integrate Spanish into other areas of the curriculum, such as with daily routines in the classroom and in our drama and music performances.

We seek to increase cultural awareness by immersing students into opportunities where they interact with the Mission neighborhood community. 

• In the K-1 classes, storytelling, songs and games immerse children in the language. By using puppets, wigs, and costumes,  we collaboratively create fictional stories and act them out on a weekly basis. This way, students are able to have a total body response to the target language.
• In grades 2, 3 and 4, students begin to read and write more. They read developmentally appropriate books containing 50-70 cognate words, the most commonly used Spanish words. At the end of the school year, these students are assessed and given recommendations on what verbal or written skills to reinforce. Starting in 3rd grade, students are provided opportunities to enhance their independent learning opportunities in a myriad of ways.
• The LS Spanish program seeks to increase cultural awareness by immersing students into opportunities where they interact with the Mission neighborhood community. Such opportunities include 3rd and 4th graders engaging with local community organizations in Spanish, and the Reading Buddies Partnership, which gives 4th graders the opportunity to teach and learn from Kindergarten heritage Spanish speakers at a local elementary school. Through these experiences, students are able to engage in Spanish-speaking practice in an authentic way, as well as expanding their knowledge of Latin American culture. 

Our physical education program exposes children to skills and games of all kinds. We emphasize fitness, teamwork, sportspersonship, hard work and perseverance. In the lower school, children have P.E regularly throughout the week, and always look forward to Field Day—one of the best days of the year. 

We emphasize fitness, teamwork, sportspersonship, hard work and perserverance. 

Reflection is a regular part of our Quaker school program. Students have ample opportunities to talk and write about what they are learning about themselves and the world. Beginning in kindergarten, students learn the guidelines for a Quaker Meeting for Business. These meetings help our students convey how they perceive their school experience, develop their listening skills, and offer a forum for appreciations and recognitions of community members. Meetings for Business also provide an opportunity to resolve problems in a collaborative manner, seeking unity with one another. Through portfolio reflections, participation in Meeting for Worship, class meetings, and peaceful problem solving, students’ engagement in this reflective practice is evident. Students are encouraged to let the Quaker testimonies of simplicity, peace, integrity, community, equity, and stewardship guide their interactions with one another and their behavior in general.

Reflection is a regular part of our Quaker school program. 

• Quakers believe that each person is inherently good. Starting in kindergarten, when students are having a hard time with a relationship, they are guided by teachers to engage in conversations with peers to both express their feelings and listen deeply to others. These conversations, called the “Peace Table” begin with an “I-Statement,” stating how the action made them feel. From there, students are able to disentangle the intent and impact of an action, and restore the relationship. This is one example of the many ways we support students on their journey of listening to all voices and trusting their own.
• When a social issue arises that needs the care and attention of the entire class, teachers will clerk a Meeting for Business. These Meetings are led with a query, such as, “What impact does this action have on our community?” Through an intentional, deliberate process that involves the voices of each individual in the class community, teachers will distill and seek consensus from the class in support of a common understanding.

We believe we learn better when we are surrounded by people and ideas that are different from our own. Students have many opportunities to forge connections with a variety of peers in school, and build mutually beneficial learning relationships with those outside of school. Our Buddy program binds students together across the grades, K–8, for regular meetings, shared projects, and community-building events. We know that trust and partnership benefit a healthy learning environment. Small, flexible groupings in our academic programs expose children to a range of connections and perspectives that enhance their development and learning. Our Service Learning program across the grades seeks to expand the children’s experiences and relationships outside of the school walls, building understanding and empathy while learning about how the world works.

We believe we learn better when we are surrounded by people and ideas that are different from our own.