lower school curriculum guide

Essential questions:

• How do graphemes (letters and letter combinations) correspond with phonemes (sounds)? And how can I use this knowledge to decode and encode words?
• How do readers approach different types of text?
• How can I more deeply understand a text?
• How am I a writer?
• How can my own life inspire my writing?

Our program provides a joyful introduction to the four primary domains of literacy: speaking, listening, writing and reading in developmentally appropriate ways. We use the Fundations program to provide a systematic and explicit introduction and exploration of phonics. Throughout the year, students will expand their knowledge of letters and sounds, high frequency words, and gain skills and confidence in writing lowercase letters. There will be opportunities to apply this knowledge through play, shared writing, and independent writing experiences. As emergent writers, kindergarteners have many opportunities to tell and listen to stories. Students will document their ideas through drawing and eventually writing. Oral storytelling and drawing provide practice with generating ideas, adding details, and organizing parts of a story. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Systematic and explicit introduction and explanation of phonics and phonology through the Fundations structured literacy program
• Documenting stories through drawing and writing
• Cultivating rich literacy experiences through oral storytelling, read alouds, author studies, and independent book browsing and exploration

Essential questions:

• How am I a flexible problem solver?
• How can I explain my mathematical thinking and represent that thinking in writing?
• How can I use my classmates’ mathematical understanding to deepen my own?
• How can I use what I know about math to solve problems that are new to me?

The emphasis of our math program is to develop flexible problem solving skills and an ability to articulate strategies, demonstrating a variety of approaches to problems. While we will explore a range of mathematical topics, our primary focus will be on developing number sense and exploring shapes and their properties.  Big ideas, strategies and skills will be developed through a workshop approach as well as through math games.  Math investigations will include explorations of counting, landmark numbers, categorizing and navigation within compelling mathematical contexts.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Grasping sequencing and 1-to-1 correspondence, conservation of numbers and cardinality
• Exploration of counting and counting on
• Developing sense of 5 and building understanding of facts to 10
• Utilizing landmark numbers
• Categorizing and navigation within compelling mathematical contexts
• Beginning their exploration of equivalence, compensation, associativity, and commutativity

Essential questions:

• How does what I already know about a topic help me create inquiries to help me explore the topic?
• How do my scientific observations help me better understand the world around me?
• How do I record my thinking so that others can understand my scientific process?

Students are engaged in science first by the KWL (Know, Want-to-know, Learned) process, which takes them through an orderly process of what they know, what they wonder and what they learn throughout a unit of study. This process encourages students to activate and organize prior knowledge, while also exposing them to new information and experiences. At the end of a unit of study, students reflect on what was learned, and how they came to conclusions about what they learned. Students engage in the work of scientists, honing their observation skills and recording their thinking in their science journals. The science curriculum is flexible and responds to the needs and interests of a particular class.

Key instructional units and experiences may include:

• Pipes
• Insects
• Goats
• The water cycle
• Bees
• Experimental procedures
• Cause and effect relationships
• Simple machines
• Fires
• Integration with visual arts
• Local field trips to support these studies

Essential questions:

• How do I help build community?
• How do our learning routines support our community and our learning?
• How do we make decisions as a community?

Our social studies curriculum centers around building the kindergarten community, learning routines, and using Quaker process to develop classroom agreements. Based on student questions and interest, we will engage in emergent studies of identity, community relationships, and explore the multiple communities of which we are a part. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Student-led learning
• Taking an active role in the caring of our local and global community
• Developmentally appropriate service learning projects

Essential questions:

• What is community?
• How am I part of our community?
• How do I contribute to and make our community a better place?

We work to create an environment that promotes and inspires a sense of belonging to a community. Our focus is on building a community that embodies peace, mutual respect and compassion for one another and for the tools with which we learn and play. We work to develop personal integrity as we learn how important it is to be inclusive and fair to all. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Participating in Meeting for Business (a Quaker process of coming to discernment over a shared issue)
• Silent reflection
• Role playing to more deeply empathize with our community
• Peace table problem solving using “I statements”
• Discussions around the queries of Quaker testimonies

Essential questions:

• What is art; what is an artist?
• How am I an artist?
• In what ways can art change our school space?
• How can art build community?
• How does collaboration expand the creative process?

In Kindergarten art classes, children are introduced to our classroom studio routines and the language of the 8 Studio Habits of Mind. In our studio/classroom thinking and developing our ideas is as important as developing our art making techniques. Kindergartners are introduced to Arts Based Research (ABR). Young artists keep ABR Notebooks where they document their thinking: brainstorms, concept maps, drafts of ideas, notes, free-writes, reflections, and critique notes are recorded these in notebooks for future reference.

Our youngest learners are encouraged to experiment while learning new ways to express themselves, harnessing a playful approach while improving technique through repetition and practice. Young artists are asked to consider how artists think, what artists do, and how artists work in the world. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Silent warm up drawings
• Sketchbooks and Accordion Books where Art Based Research is practiced
• Portfolios that house the year’s artwork
• Community Artwork: Collaborative Rainbow Paintings
• Tiny Houses: a reclaimed materials project
• Portfolio Boxes as Kindergarten Grade Time Capsule

Essential questions:

• How do we work together as a musical community?
• What are the different kinds of voices I can use? 
• How do I distinguish the different elements of music?
• How do instruments help express the meaning of songs and stories?

Kindergarten music is a joyful dive into the elements of music and the SFFS musical community. Students explore materials and concepts in a playful manner, learn to work together as a musical community, and practice foundational concepts such as beat and musical elements such as tempo, pitch, and dynamics. Movement is a large component of this year, and students engage in creative movement as well as group dances and games. Students begin to learn the community songs that we sing at Lower School Assemblies and Meeting for Worship and enjoy participating in these gatherings with their buddies. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Exploration of musical materials such as scarves, puppets, and small percussion instruments
• Performance at Winter Celebration
• Music integrated into classroom activities
• Community singing with the whole grade level and school

Essential questions:

• What role does play and music have in making Spanish learning engaging?
• How do we expand our Spanish vocabulary through story-telling?
• How do we introduce ourselves and describe what we like in Spanish?

Kindergarten students in the Spanish classroom are exposed to a stimulating educational environment where story-telling, games, and songs are a crucial component that immerses them to the language at a developmentally appropriate level. There are three essential elements that are conducive to satisfactory learning in the K Spanish classroom: (1) Students must feel safe to make and learn from their mistakes. (2) Students must have access to interactive hands-on activities. (3) Students should be able to have choices and let their curiosity direct their learning.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• “Todo sobre mi” [All about me]
• “El alfabeto y los números” [Alphabet & Numbers]
• “Sentimientos” [Feelings]
• “Mi cuerpo” [My Body]
• “El clima” [The Weather]
• “La ropa y las estaciones” [Clothes & Seasons] 
• “Los animales” [The Animals]
• “A mi me gusta” [What I like] 

Essential questions:

• How am I working on becoming a lifelong physically active person?
• What is a patient learner?
• How do I play with integrity?

Kindergarten physical education is a class where students are introduced to a variety of new challenges, and understanding that giving a new skill or activity a try is part of learning. It’s also about getting better at familiar skills and games. Effort and working hard to improve are celebrated. Mistakes are part of learning, and considered a good indicator that a student is learning. The program strives for physical activity to be a joyful experience.

Kindergarten is a year of movement exploration, skills, coordination, spatial awareness, fitness, rhythm, and balance. It is also a year of learning to work with others, as a partner and a teammate. We explore what it means to be a patient learner, with ourselves and others, and how to support one another.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Simple games, and as the year progresses more sophisticated activities (Man From Mars, Midnight, Polar Bear, Frogs on the Lilypads, Dr. Good, Clean Up Your Backyard)
• Skill development, including gross motor skills, eye-hand coordination, foot-eye coordination, fitness, rhythm, flexibility and balance 
• Warm-up activities, including individual and partner work
• Mindfulness activities

Essential questions:

• How do graphemes (letters and letter combinations) correspond with phonemes (sounds)? And how can I use this knowledge to decode and encode words?
• How do readers approach different types of text?
• How can I more deeply understand a text?
• How am I a writer?
• How can my own life inspire my writing?

The foundation of our literacy program is to promote children’s natural love of story, while systematically teaching the discrete reading and writing skills of phonics (decoding and spelling). Students learn that reading is thinking. Reading informs writing; during Writer’s Workshop, literature is often used to model various writing styles, genres and the basic elements of story. Children use the developmental spelling process in their writing, which enables creative flow and allows them to be uninhibited and empowered as authors. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Listening and responding to fiction and nonfiction texts
• Engaging in whole group and mixed-ability partnerships
• Receiving individualized instruction and practice with aspects of reading, from decoding to comprehension and fluency
• Using Structured Word Inquiry (SWI) to identify word bases, prefixes and suffixes to decode, encode, and understand words
• Utilizing Fundations structured literacy program to provide a systematic, structured and explicit introduction and exploration of phonics
• Writing a variety of genres, including personal narratives (small moments), nonfiction, and fiction
• Developing handwriting skills through multi-sensory lessons and practice with writing lowercase and uppercase letters

Essential questions:

• How can I use the patterns I notice to deepen my mathematical problem solving?
• How do I use math and math tools in my everyday life?
• How can I explain my mathematical thinking and represent that thinking in writing?

The emphasis in math is to develop a strong number sense, as well as flexible thinking, providing a basis for broad problem-solving. While math is traditionally more concrete than other subjects, children are continually asked to explain their thinking and demonstrate a variety of strategies to any one problem. The children gain a keen sense of patterns—numerical, spatial and visual—which creates a foundation for understanding and manipulating the Base 10 number system. Our primary resources for our math curriculum are Contexts for Learning and Bridges in Mathematics.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Building number sense by counting and comparing quantities, composing and decomposing numbers, and developing visual images of quantities
• Developing strategies for addition and subtraction
• Gaining knowledge of mathematical tools, processes and routines
• Developing understanding of length, width, and linear units
• Relating non-standard to standard units of measurement

Essential questions:

• How can I use my own curiosity and observations to learn about the world around me?
• How can I use trial and error to create Rube Goldberg machines?
• How can I care for the environment around me?

Children explore science through inquiry and observation. While they learn to support facts with evidence, it is the wonder and hands-on exploration that makes science come alive. Children use a trial and error approach in our exploration of machines and design challenges. Environmental stewardship is a year-long theme of first grade, which is naturally integrated into our life and earth sciences. Children learn how they can each participate in conservation in their daily lives. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Engineering Rube Goldberg machines
• Participating in design challenges
• Learning how to conserve Earth’s resources through sorting waste
• Observing biodiversity, adaptations, and life cycles through a scientific lens
• Visiting a local tide pool

Essential questions:

• How do my own rights and responsibilities impact my community?
• How am I socially responsible for my own actions and towards my community?
• How am I an upstander for myself and others?

Developing a sense of empathy is a crucial part of developing, understanding, and experiencing community. Community studies are embedded in our social-emotional learning curriculum. Through literature, discussion, and action, first graders begin to understand social responsibility and explore themes of social justice. Children are encouraged to speak up for themselves and others, and practice active listening. First graders generate gestures of thoughtfulness, care, and appreciation. Students are learning to take responsibility for their actions and peacefully resolve conflicts in a respectful manner. Social skills activities include learning to use I statements such as “I feel” and “I need,” and working to de-escalate a difficult situation.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Read-alouds and guided discussions about issues of social justice
• Practicing speaking up and actively, reflective listening during conversations
• Giving and receiving weekly gratitudes

Essential questions:

• Why do artists envision and plan our work?
• Can art change our thinking?
• What factors encourage us to take creative risks?
• What role does persistence play in revising, refining, and developing work?
• How can art build community?
• How do artists enact Simplicity?

In first grade art classes, the two Studio Habits of Mind that are highlighted are Engage and Persist, and Envision. Young artists engage in Arts Based Research to envision and plan their artwork. As first graders learn that engaging in the work and persistence takes many forms,  young artists come to understand the importance of flexibility;  the final product often does resemble what the artist imagines. Young artists are asked to consider how artists think, what artists do, and how artists work in the world. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Silent warm up drawings
• Sketchbooks and Accordion Books where Art Based Research is practiced
• Portfolios that house the year’s artwork
• Envision/Imagine: Magical Plant Sculptures
• Wings of Fancy: What kind of wings would you have?
• Portfolio Boxes as First Grade Time Capsule

Essential questions:

• How do musicians generate creative ideas? 
• How do musicians represent musical ideas using symbols?
• What are the elements of an effective performance?

Having cultivated a love of music and a foundation of skills in kindergarten, first graders begin to explore the more technical aspects of music making. They begin to analyze the relationship between sound and symbol, which prepares them for learning about standard Western music notation. They continue to engage in a wide range of activities such as playing singing games and instruments, dancing, and creative movement. They focus on working in partnerships as well as whole class collaboration. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Exploring ways of making music using recycled materials
• Performance at Grandfriends Day
• Learning to perform a large number of songs and chants and to practice rhythmic and melodic skills
• Using graphic notation to express musical ideas

Essential questions:

• What role does play and music have in making Spanish learning engaging?
• How do we expand our Spanish vocabulary through story-telling?
• How do we talk about ourselves and our family in Spanish?

First grade students in the Spanish classroom continue being exposed to a stimulating educational environment where story-telling, games, and songs are a crucial component that immerses them to the language at a developmentally appropriate level. Having a more solid Spanish vocabulary allows students to start writing and forming more complex sentences in Spanish. There are three essential elements that are conducive to satisfactory learning in the 1st Grade Spanish classroom: (1) Students must learn how to learn in a collaborative environment. (2) Students must have access to interactive hands-on activities. (3) Students should be able to make collaborative choices that enhance the classroom community.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• “Mi familia” [My Family]
• “Mi comunidad” [My community]
• “Mi casa” [My house]
• “Los deportes” [The Sports]
• “Día de los muertos” [Day of the Dead]
• “La comida” [The Food] 
• “Los verbos” [The Verbs]
• “La ciudad” [The City]

Essential questions:

• How am I working on becoming a lifelong physically active person?
• How do I show I am a patient learner?
• How am I a supportive classmate?

First grade physical education focuses on continuing to develop a foundation of basic skills. Students continue to expand their abilities, and new skills are scaffolded to accommodate varying levels. The program strives to develop lifelong learning habits and a growth mindset, including giving best effort, being open to new skills and activities, demonstrating patience with oneself, and working to improve.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Fitness through tag games, relays, stretching, strengthening activities, flexibility, individual and partner work
• Large Group Games, including kickball variations, chase games, dodging-type games, team activities
• Skillwork to develop technique, eye-hand/eye-foot coordination, rhythm, balance
• Expanding knowledge of games and strategies through participation and experimentation

Writing

Essential Questions:

• How can my writing reflect what makes my family and me unique and different?
• How can I use literary devices to deepen my writing?
• How does the presentation of my writing (mechanics, spelling, handwriting) make my writing more accessible?

Second graders are ready for writing work that feels big and important. Students learn to study and mine mentor texts for author craft moves they can use in their own small moment stories, writing with attention to internal and external details (e.g., thoughts and feelings vs. setting and action). In nonfiction work, students draw on the changemakers unit from reading, considering the timeline and important milestones of their own lives. From there, they choose the events from their own lives to pen an autobiography that highlights their uniqueness within our community. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Family correspondences through Letter Writing Journals
• Composing and revising poetry
• Writing about reading
• Exploring our identities and delving into our own lives and journeys through autobiographies

Reading

Essential questions:

• What connections do I make to my own life when reading a story?
• How can I use what I already know to understand the story?
• How do I deepen my understanding of the author's purpose?
• How can exploring and reading different genres (such as nonfiction) help us grow as readers?
• What inferences can I make?

In second grade, children strengthen their reading fluency by utilizing their decoding skills with greater efficiency and flexibility. In small word-study groups and through Structured Word Inquiry, students study increasingly complex relationships between morphology (bases, suffixes, and prefixes), etymology (historical influences of English words), and phonology (letter-sound correspondences). Through this, students bolster their vocabulary, connecting relationships across words. With this increased fluency, students are able to work through more difficult words and scoop their reading into longer phrases. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Engaging in whole class read-alouds
• Developing reading prosody through Reading Growth Spurts and Readers Theater
• Comprehending nonfiction texts through Becoming Experts and Biography Book Clubs
• Deepening comprehension skills through Bigger Books Mean Amping Up Reading Power and Series Book Clubs

Essential questions:

• How do mathematicians work together and learn from each other?
• How do I show my math thinking and explain it in a way that others can understand?
• How can I use what I know to make and extend my understanding?

In second grade, mathematicians are encouraged to find patterns as a foundational skill. Children engage in pattern-seeking mathematical thinking as soon as the day begins, during Morning Meeting and during math lessons. In this way, second graders compose conjectures about how various mathematical concepts are related to one another and strengthen their understanding. We also use games to build math fluency.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Making sense of problems and persevere in solving them
• Constructing viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others
• Modeling with mathematics
• Using appropriate tools strategically
• Attending to precision
• Solidifying understanding of place value to 1,000
• Knowing addition and subtraction facts to 20
• Using multiple strategies to add and subtract two digit numbers 
• Counting, comparing, and making change with coins
• Exploring the relationship between addition and subtraction 
• Measuring with standard and nonstandard units 
• Telling time in five-minute increments

Essential questions:

• How can questions be answered through scientific inquiry?
• How do we use observations and/or experimental results to support inferences and claims about an investigation?
• How do you use evidence to develop explanations, predictions and models?

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Ways of Water: Where Do Rivers Begin, How is Sand Made, How Can We Prepare for Flash Floods, What’s Strong Enough to Make a Canyon, How Can We Stop Erosion
• What is the Water Cycle?
• Watersheds and Drains?

The students will…

• Develop questions and consider ways to conduct research
• Make and record observations
• Demonstrate an understanding of how living things change 
• Explore properties of the physical world 

Essential questions:

• Where have you seen examples in our world of people, places, and things that have been treated unfairly?
• How can you be a changemaker in your school, in your community, and in the world?

Second graders frame their social studies units around the idea of Changemakers, people who are working toward making the world a better place by addressing injustices. We learn both about historical figures who made a significant impact on fighting injustices, as well as current figures, some of which are even in our own community!  

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Examining the words "justice"/"injustice" 
• Identifying historical and current injustices and researching changemakers who are fighting those injustices
• Close reading of the Declaration of Independence
• Looking at different social justice movements in history (civil rights movement, workers rights, women's rights, gender rights, environmental injustice)
• Researching a topic or cause that interests them in order to take action and be an advocate for social justice

Essential questions:

• Can art change the way we see the world?
• What is gratitude and why is gratitude important?
• How do artists enact Simplicity?
• How do artists grow and become accomplished in art forms?

In second grade art classes, the Studio Habits of Mind that are highlighted are Observe and Reflect. Young artists learn to slow artmaking processes down in order to carefully look at what is being created. Time is dedicated to reflect on the art making process garnering new ideas, considering next steps and giving/receiving constructive feedback. Young learners practice these habits by alternating between 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional artworks, working both individually and collaboratively. A goal for the second graders is to understand the value that reflection has on their artistic practice.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Silent warm up drawings
• Sketchbooks and Accordion Books where Art Based Research is practiced
• Portfolios that house the year’s artwork
• Gratitude Attitude Unique StarBooks
• Change Maker Printmaking Project
• Portfolio Boxes as Second Grade Time Capsule

Essential questions:

• How do composers choose the tempo, dynamics, or register when writing music to describe specific characters? 
• How do musicians make creative decisions? 
• How do singers blend their voices to sound like an ensemble?
• How do people use music to express their beliefs in order to make change in the world?

Second grade students dive deeply into the elements of music. They learn to read and write simple rhythmic and melodic patterns as they continue to develop their musicianship skills through singing, dancing, playing instruments and games. They also listen to composers’ creations to analyze their intent and then use this understanding to compose their own instrumental pieces that tell a story. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Learning about composers and composing music to express elements of a story
• Integrated Changemakers Unit (with grade level classrooms)
• Performance at Winter Celebration
• Beginning to learn the language of music using hand-signs, solfege, and standard Western music notation

Essential questions:

• How do we enhance our verbal Spanish skills when engaging in dialogue with each other?
• How do we enhance our written Spanish skills when working independently?
• How do the bi-yearly Spanish assessments help us enhance our verbal and Spanish written skills?

Second grade students in the Spanish classroom have a more solid Spanish vocabulary and are therefore able to engage in more dialogue with each other. At this point, 2nd graders are also able to work independently to enhance their Spanish written skills. Starting in second grade, students complete two written and verbal assessments each semester. When assessing students, the teacher is able to evaluate where the student is at and what they need to work on to advance their verbal and written Spanish skills. There are three essential elements that are conducive to satisfactory learning in the 2nd Grade Spanish classroom: (1) Students must use their time wisely and be able to work independently and in groups. (2) There is an active communication between the teacher and the student’s family about optional Spanish practice at home. (3) Students should be able to keep track of their learning and be proactive about needed areas of improvement advised by the teacher.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• “¿Quiénes somos?” [Who are we?]
• “Vamos a la escuela” [Let’s go to School]
• “La Selva Tropical” [The Tropical Forest]
• “¡Vamos de compras!” [Let’s go Shopping!]
• “Día de los muertos” [Day of the Dead]
• “Historia Afro-Latina” [Afro-Latinx History]
• “Verbos y pronombres” [Verbs & Pronouns]
• “Las Vacaciones” [Vacations]

Essential questions:

• How am I working on becoming a lifelong physically active person?
• How am I an athlete?
• How do I play with integrity?

Second graders are ready for increasingly more complex games, and going a little deeper with skillwork and game concepts. They are trying out new found strategies through experimentation, and are expanding their problem-solving skills. There is a big emphasis on continuing to work hard to improve, and building on already known skills. New skills and activities are introduced throughout the year. Sportsmanship and supporting one another are regularly practiced. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Large Group Games, including Capture the Flag, Chicken Coop, Mass Invasion, and more.
• Playground Games, including  handball, two-square
• Kickball Variations
• Broomball
• Basketball
• Team Challenges
• Jump Rope
• Softball
• Soccer

Writing

Essential questions:

• How does an author's own life experience shape what and how they write?
• How can an author study and analyze another writer’s text in order to improve one’s writing craft?
• How can I use the etymology of a word to better understand how a word is spelled?

Third graders’ writing becomes more sophisticated. Students delve further in the genres of narrative, expository and persuasive writing with greater complexity. They begin the year by mining their own lives for stories, and finding the meaning in small moments they want to share with others. Their expository writing is integrated across reading and science, and just as they learned through their reading, they consider text structures to communicate information clearly and concisely. Third graders also extend their persuasive writing skills. As inspired by the Quaker saying, “Let your life speak,” students begin by considering what change in the world they want to see, and write five-paragraph essays based on their own chosen theses. As they write, they consider purpose and audience, and, as with all their writing, they revise their work based on teacher and peer feedback. Cursive and typing are introduced in third grade.

Key writing experiences include:

• Writing personal narratives through Crafting True Stories
• Penning a nonfiction text through The Art of Information Writing and Writing about Research
• Leaning how to write essays through Changing the World: Persuasive Speeches, Petitions, and Editorials, as well as Baby Literary Essay
• Engaging in creative writing through Adapting and Writing Fairy Tales

Reading

Essential Questions:

• How can I use details in a text to deepen my comprehension?
• How do we determine what is important in a text?
• How can I build ideas off of a text in order to think more deeply, converse, and write about a text?

Our reading curriculum is designed to teach essential reading skills, while also promoting stamina, fluency, and a deeper level of student engagement. Within our reading program, the students will experience independent reading, partner reading, interactive reading, read-alouds, and book clubs. 

Key language arts experiences include:

• Cultivating a culture of reading through Building a Reading Life
• Acquiring nonfiction reading skills through Reading to Learn: Grasping Main Ideas and Text Structure and Research Clubs
• Deepening understanding of characters (development and complexity) through Character Studies and Mystery: Foundational Skills in Disguise

Essential questions:

• How do I challenge myself to grow as a mathematician?
• How do I show my math thinking and explain it in a way that others can understand?
• How are different mathematical operations and concepts related?

We encourage our students to use math to think about and understand their world. We offer a range of opportunities for problem-solving that draw upon the skills they have built thus far. We encourage the students to communicate how they arrive at answers and to learn from each others’ strategies, questions, and reasoning. We provide students with opportunities to problem-solve as a large group, with partners, and individually. We encourage students to think about tools and resources that will assist them in problem-solving. The math curriculum spirals, reinforcing and extending concepts introduced in previous years. 

Key math experiences include:

• Using addition and subtraction in real-life situations
• Collecting data to explore surveys and line plots
• Learning about perimeter, angles, and area
• Beginning to explore fractions (equal groups)
• Introduction of multiplication and division

Essential questions:

• How can questions be answered through scientific inquiry?
• How do we use observations and/or experimental results to support inferences and claims about an investigation?
• How do you use evidence to develop explanations, predictions and models?

Children are constantly seeking answers to make sense of their world. We will build upon this natural curiosity and engage the children in the inquiry process of a scientist. Students will be introduced to a topic by discussing what they already know, then explore materials to generate curiosity and excitement. Third graders will internalize the scientific method through hands-on experiments that focus on key scientific habits such as observing, asking questions, and formulating hypotheses. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Stormy Skies (Weather & Climate)
• Invisible Forces (Forces, Motion & Magnets)
• Power of Flowers (Plant Life Cycle & Heredity)
• Animals through Time (Fossils, Animal Survival & Heredity)

Essential questions:

• Why do people migrate?
• How does the migration of people shape communities?
• How has migration shaped my family? 

In addition to our all-school focus on simplicity, along with other Quaker testimonies, third graders delve deeply into San Francisco history through a migration lens, while developing many essential skills through social studies: reading and analyzing, taking notes from, and discussing primary and secondary sources related to San Francisco’s history and present. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• San Francisco History, including Native Americans indigenous to the Bay Area (Ohlone)
• Chinese Immigration to San Francisco, with a framing of push/pull factors from China to the United States
• Weekly family migration shares
• Exploring the experiences of undocumented individuals and refugees 
• Visiting Angel Island Immigration Station
• Historical tour of Chinatown

Essential questions:

• Why does art matter?
• What is artistic voice?
• What responsibilities come with the freedom to create?
• In what ways can art change the world?
• How do artists enact Simplicity?

In third grade art classes, the Studio Habits of Mind that are highlighted are Develop Craft and Express. Young artists develop a variety of art making techniques while engaging in visual storytelling in a number of projects. Young artists are asked to consider how artists think, what artists do, and how artistic voices can affect the world. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Silent warm up drawings
• Sketchbooks and Accordion Books where Art Based Research is practiced
• Portfolios that house the year’s artwork
• Scientific Illustration and Observational Drawings
• Mutant Insects that Change the World: Reclaimed Material Sculptures
• The Patronus Project: what creature represents your artistic voice?
• Portfolio Boxes as Third Grade Time Capsule

Essential questions:

• How does music connect people to their families, ancestors, and cultures? 
• Why is certain music important to people and/or their families?
• How do musicians improve the quality of their creative work? 
• How do performers select repertoire to listen to and perform? 

As they flourish and become more sophisticated musicians, third graders have many opportunities to apply their musical skills in a variety of highly engaging projects. While learning about instruments and music from many different cultures, they study the symphony orchestra. They learn about the role of the conductor, the way the instruments are grouped into families, and analyze the rehearsal process of a variety of ensembles, including, but not limited to, the orchestra. From there, they work in small groups to prepare pieces to perform for the class, replicating the rehearsal techniques that they observed and selecting the ones that they feel would best support their goals. They have the opportunity to try multiple approaches, leading to their own discovery of effective ways to improve their performance. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Field trip to local musical performances
• Performance at Winter Celebration
• Analyzing how ancestry, culture, and migration inform musical compositions
  • Integrated project about the music of each students’ family
• Continuing to use music notation as a way to learn music and express musical ideas

Essential questions:

• How do our field-trips enhance our cultural awareness of Latin American culture?
• How do we enhance our written Spanish skills when creating and reading our own stories?
• How do the bi-yearly Spanish assessments help us enhance our verbal and Spanish written skills?

3rd Grade students in the Spanish classroom have unique opportunities of putting their Spanish skills into practice in real life situations. Such opportunities include our yearly taco truck activity where they are expected to order a taco of their choice in Spanish. At this point, 3rd graders have built more confidence when engaging in Spanish conversations. 3rd graders complete two written and verbal assessments each semester. When assessing students, the teacher is able to evaluate where the student is at and what they need to work on to advance their verbal and written Spanish skills. There are three essential elements that are conducive to satisfactory learning in the 3rd Grade Spanish classroom: (1) Students must be ready to put their Spanish skills into real life situations outside of the Spanish classroom. (2) There is an active communication between the teacher and the student’s family about optional Spanish practice at home. (3) Students should be able to keep track of their learning and be proactive about needed areas of improvement advised by the teacher.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• “La familia y los adjetivos” [Family & Adjectives]
• “Los planetas” [The Planets]
• “Excursión: Mi taco favorito” [Fieldtrip: My Favorite Taco]
• “Verbos en presente y pasado” [Present and Past-tense verbs]
• “Lectura: El Capibara con Botas” [Reading: The Capybara With Boots]
• “Vamos de viaje” [Let’s go traveling]
• “Geografia de America Latina” [Latin American Geography]
• “Proyecto final: Mi Cuento” [Final Project: My Story]

Essential questions:

• How am I working on becoming a lifelong physically active person?
• What is the mindset of an athlete?
• How am I an athlete?
• What are ways I find the good in others?

Third graders continue to go into greater depth with their skills and knowledge of games. They work to solidify their basic skills, and attention is given to executing proper techniques. Good sportsmanship and supporting others are practiced throughout the year. Playing with integrity is emphasized, and is crucial to the success of playing together. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Large Group Games, including Capture the Flag, Chicken Coop, Mass Invasion, and more.
• Playground Games, including handball, four-square
• Kickball Variations
• Broomball
• Basketball
• Team Challenges
• Jump Rope
• Softball
• Soccer
• Pickleball

Writing

Essential questions:

• How does an author's own life experience shape what and how they write?
• How can an author study and analyze another writer’s text in order to improve one’s writing craft?
• How can I use the etymology of a word to better understand how a word is spelled?

In language arts, the fourth grade uses the Writing Workshop model as well as National Novel Writing Month curriculum. The Writing Workshop supports students’ growing abilities to utilize craft writing moves such as illustrating a character’s motivations by bringing their emotions or actions to life, or using a metaphor as a thread throughout a narrative to lift up the story’s theme. In addition to the units of study, fourth graders engage in National Novel Writing Month, which develops students’ fluency and stamina, and makes clear the stages of the writing process. Fourth graders keep a daily writing notebook, which they use at school. Students will also develop skills as editors, strengthening their vocabulary, spelling, and grammar.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Writing personal narratives through The Arc of a Story
• Participation and instruction through National Novel Writing Month
• Realistic fiction script writing, through research of primary and secondary sources
• Composing poetry, deepening understanding of metaphor
• The Literary Essay: Writing about Fiction

Reading

Essential questions:

• How can I use details in a text to deepen my comprehension?
• How do we determine what is important in a text?
• How can I build ideas off of a text in order to think more deeply, converse, and write about a text?

The reading workshop curriculum is designed to teach essential skills in reading narrative, expository, and poetry, while also promoting stamina, fluency, and a deep level of student engagement.  Within our reading program, we will have independent reading, partner reading, interactive reading, read-alouds, and book clubs. In order to guarantee that all students have books ready for reading time, they keep a second or third book on deck.  It is also essential that each child carries their book between home and school every day, continuing to read their book in both places, which solidifies our culture of reading.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Interpreting characters and exploring the heart of the story in fiction reading 
• Research skills through learning about natural disasters
• Readers theater: performing plays written by students
• Interpreting poetry
• Cultivating critical thinking and deeper engagement with fiction texts through book clubs

Essential questions:

• How do I challenge myself to grow as a mathematician?
• How do I represent my mathematical thinking and share it with others so that we can learn from each others’ strategies?
• How do I see patterns and make connections across mathematical operations and concepts?

We encourage our students to use math to think flexibly about and understand their world. We offer a range of opportunities for problem-solving that draw upon the skills they have built thus far.  We encourage the students to communicate how they arrive at answers and to learn from each other’s strategies, questions, and reasoning.  We provide students with opportunities to problem-solve as a large group, with partners, and individually.  We encourage students to think about tools and resources that will assist them in problem-solving. The math curriculum is one which spirals–revisiting previously taught concepts, which reinforce and extend their math knowledge from earlier years. We use the National Council for Teaching Mathematics’ mathematical practices to guide our instruction:

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
4. Model with mathematics.
5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
6. Attend to precision.
7. Look for and make use of structure.
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Using all four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) to solve problems
• Gain familiarity with factors and multiples
• Analyze patterns and relationships
• Generalize place value understanding for multi-digit whole numbers
• Interpret multiplication as a ratio
• Use place value understanding and properties of operations to perform multi-digit arithmetic
• Extend understanding of fraction equivalence and ordering
• Build fractions from unit fractions by applying and extending previous understandings of operations on whole numbers
• Understand decimal notation for fractions, and compare decimal fractions

Essential questions:

• How can questions be answered through scientific inquiry?
• How do we use observations and/or experimental results to support inferences and claims about an investigation?
• How do you use evidence to develop explanations, predictions and models?

In fourth grade, we develop students' natural curiosity through engaging in sense making of the world through the inquiry process. Students will be introduced to a topic through discussing what they already know, then explore materials to generate questions and make observations. Questions will be collected and categorized. Then they will make hypotheses and seek further conceptual understanding through hands-on research and investigation. Large group discussions will compare results, clarify misconceptions, and assess the students’ understanding. Our units of study will include earth sciences, ecosystems, and sound & electricity.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Studying electricity and setting up electrical circuits and other projects
• Investigating structures and functions of the human body
• Investigating features and processes of the Earth’s surface
• Exploring sun, moon and stars
• Investigating the science of sound

Essential questions:

• How does environment and geography influence the cultural development of the people of California, both past and present?
• How did the colonization of California change the ways of life of Native California tribes?

Fourth grade’s major unit of study is California history.  We further students’ research skills through primary and secondary sources. Our social studies units are complemented by our field studies program, which includes an overnight trip in fourth grade.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Studying the geography of California
• Researching the history of different people of California from American Indians to Spanish and Mexican colonization
• Learning about the Gold Rush and its impact on the people and landscape of California 
• Exploring Black Americans’ contribution to American history through the text Born on the Water, connecting to Quaker resistance and participation in social movements

Essential questions:

• What is the relationship between art, social justice, and action?
  • What is the impact of action?
• In what ways can art change the world?
• How does the past and present overlap and intersect?
• What is Community Art practice?
• How do artists enact Simplicity?

In fourth grade art classes, the Studio Habits of Mind that are highlighted are Stretch and Explore, and Understanding the Art World. Children are asked, "In what ways can I stretch and explore as an artist?" To answer, young artists engage in Art Based Research where they reflect on their own practice in order to develop their art projects. Fourth grade art students are challenged to push their thinking and understandings of the art making process. Young artists are asked to consider how artists think, what artists do, and how artists can change the way we see the world. Children come to understand that creativity and innovative thinking are essential life skills that can be developed.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Silent warm up drawings
• Sketchbooks and Accordion Books where Art Bases Research is practiced
• Portfolios that house the year’s artwork
• Los Muertos Ofrenda and Altar
• The Art of the Selfie: a study of self portraiture
• Change Making Superhero Project
• Portfolio Boxes as Fourth Grade Time Capsule

Essential questions:

• What are other ways that people use music to show respect to and to connect with their ancestors and/or culture?
• What is the role of music in Day of the Dead celebrations?
• How does recognizing different musical elements help us identify the origin of a piece of music?
• When is creative work ready to share? 

At the end of 4th grade students will have participated in the creative process, both improvising and composing their own music. They will also have had multiple opportunities for formal and informal performances in singing, instrumental music, and folk dance and creative movement. They will have created music inspired by poetry. They will have listened to, performed, and talked about the music from many parts of the world. They will have an appreciation of music that is both familiar and unfamiliar, so they can see themselves reflected in the music that they are listening to as well as experience music from cultures different from their own (windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors).  Students will be open-minded and engaged, and they will demonstrate pride in their musical abilities and understandings. 

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Field trips for live performances
• Performance at Winter Celebration
• Composition Project: Setting poetry to music
• A focus on music from many countries, including an integrated unit about Dia de los Muertos
• Continuing to build confidence in reading and writing standard music notation, including using letter names to strengthen instrumental skills

Essential questions:

• How do our field-trips enhance our cultural awareness of Latin American culture and our Spanish speaking skills?
• How do we continue to be proactive about improving our Spanish speaking skills outside of the Spanish classroom?
• How do the bi-yearly Spanish assessments help us enhance our verbal and Spanish written skills?

4th Grade students in the Spanish classroom continue to have unique opportunities of putting their Spanish skills into practice in real life situations. Such opportunities include our 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. 4th graders have their final two written and verbal assessments each semester before their transition to Middle-School Spanish. At this point, the teacher is able to evaluate where the student is at and what they need to work on to advance their verbal and written Spanish skills in Middle School. There are three essential elements that are conducive to satisfactory learning in the 4th Grade Spanish classroom: (1) Students must continue putting their Spanish skills into real life situations outside of the Spanish classroom. (2) There is an active communication between the teacher and the student’s family about optional Spanish practice at home. (3) Students should be able to keep track of their learning and be proactive about needed areas of improvement advised by the teacher.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• “En mi barrio” [In my neighborhood]
• “Entrevista/Yo soy” [Interview/I am]
• “Alianza de léctura SFFS/Marshall [SFFS/Marshall Reading Buddies Partnership]
• “Excursión: Mi empanada favorita” [Fieldtrip: My favorite empanada]
• “Excursión: Día de los muertos” [Fieldtrip: Día de los muertos]
• “Lectura: La perezosa impaciente” [Reading: The Impatient Sloth]
• Mi vida cotidiana/verbos reflexivos [My daily life/reflexive verbs]
• “Proyecto final: Mi Cuento” [Final Project: My Story]

Essential questions:

• How am I changing and growing as an athlete? 
• What new games can I play? 
• How can I support my team? 
• How do I contribute to a positive and encouraging PE class for everyone? 

Fourth grade physical education classes continue to focus on group recreational games with full participation and inclusion as the aim. Students begin to work on team games with defined skills, techniques and strategies for teamwork. Class rules and procedures continue to be a focus, as the group needs to be cohesive for games to succeed. By fourth grade, many children are already playing on single or multiple teams outside of school, which can create varying interest and skill levels among students, as well as a sense of competitiveness present in team sports. Capabilities and physical self-awareness and self-regulation are stressed and linked to performance and healthy involvement. Games are designed to promote equal advantage and opportunity with inclusion and group outcome as the ultimate aim. Games often have multiple roles and responsibilities so that all children can feel that they are necessary and integral. Group discussion becomes more important to promote self-reflection and a cooperative team spirit. Children contribute to problem solving and solutions to keep play happy for everyone regardless of skill levels and the rate of skill development.

Key instructional units and experiences include:

• Fitness and wellness. (Static Stretch Warm-ups, Yoga, Dance)
• Cooperative Games/ Team Building
• Striking Games (Broomball)
• Jumprope, Playground Games, Scooters
• Striking and Fielding Games ( Kickball, Danish Longball)
• Football, Soccer Foot Skills, Basketball
• Pickleball, Gagaball