News & Events
Kindergarten & 1st Grade
The Oceans
Our yearlong theme in our Kindergarten and First Grade class will be The Oceans. We will be studying elements of the different oceans, particularly the varied animals within the waters. They will have many opportunities to research topics of their interest within the Oceans theme, and we will be teaching our students research skills such as using the index and table of contents, as well as utilizing the Jacksonville Public Library's free online databases (jaxpubliclibrary.org). Ask your students about their Hide and Seek in the Coral Reef project, the different layers of the ocean, the shark they studied, and what we learned about the tides and tectonic plates!
We will be introducing our PETS (Primary Education Thinking Skills) curriculum, with the characters Max the Magician, Isabelle the Inventor, Dudley the Detective, Sybil the Scientist, Yolanda the Yarnspinner, and Jordan the Judge. These characters help us teach lessons about critical thinking, evaluative thinking, creative thinking, and deductive logic.
We will also be introducing our students to coding through the program Code.org. We are very excited to share this new system with our students, and we are sure we are all going to love it! We have introduced the idea of finding bugs and decoding the bugs to help us solve problems, skills helpful when coding and in everyday life!
Second & Third Grade
Africa
The yearlong theme in our second and third grade classes is Africa. We will be studying the different cultures, regions and animals of Africa. This will also present us with the opportunity for research using the Jacksonville Public Library databases (www.jaxpubliclibrary.org). Ask your students what African animal they are researching and for them to show you their Sway presentation and tell you about their project!
We will be continuing with our PETS (Primary Education Thinking Skills) curriculum, with the familiar characters Max the Magician, Isabelle the Inventor, Dudley the Detective, Sybil the Scientist, Yolanda the Yarnspinner, and Jordan the Judge. These characters help us teach lessons about critical thinking, evaluative thinking, creative thinking, and deductive logic. We have practiced our Convergent Thinking skills by comparing the PETS characters' attributes, and our Divergent Thinking skills by brainstorming and thinking about things from different perspectives. Ask your students about creating patterns with Max's Hat Strings and Max's Mirror Dominoes, and solving the puzzles of Max's Tangrams!
We will also be continue learning about coding through the program Code.org. We are very excited to learn more about this system with our students, and we are sure we are all going to love it! We have introduced the idea of finding bugs and decoding the bugs to help us solve problems, skills helpful when coding and in everyday life!
Upper Elementary
Geography & Architecture
In our Upper Elementary Classes our year long theme is Geography and Architecture. We will be practicing our research skills by studying different parts of the world and learning about different pieces of famous architecture. Ask your students about their Special Places house, their toothpick and gumdrop tower and the architectural feature they studied and wrote a poem about. Also ask them to show you our class Architectural A-Z "book" we made in Sway on our Teams page (under the Architecture section) and to tell you about the building they are researching!