ART

Units of Study

Collage, Drawing, Painting, Sculpting (clay), Woodworking, Printmaking, Fiber Arts

LEARNING GOALS FOR ART:

  • Study contemporary artists

  • Demonstrate observational skills (drawing and recording from real life)

  • Learn when and how to use different media for different projects

  • Begin to plan art projects by sketching first

  • Draw from imagination and observation

  • Explore how to use shadow to create a 3-D image

  • Design and construct 3 dimensional objects using recycled materials

Health and Wellness

BODY HEALTH

  • Make colorful choices at lunch and try something new

  • Manage and understand the importance of self-care routines such as loose teeth/lost tooth, hand washing, and bathing

  • Understand the importance of movement

SOCIAL HEALTH

  • Develop additional strategies for collaboration and compromise

  • Develop language for creating positive friendships and healthy conflict resolution

  • Develop self-advocacy skills such as asking for help

EMOTIONAL HEALTH

  • Develop the concept of personal Identity

  • Name and share feelings

  • Develop skills to manage uncomfortable feelings

Language Arts & Literacy

CORE RESOURCES:

Words Their Way
Teachers College Reading & Writing Project, Lucy Calkins
Units of Study for Primary Writing, Lucy Calkins
Guided Reading, Irene C. Fountas & Gay Su Pinnell
Sounds in Motion, Fran Santore
Developmentally appropriate literature
Variety of spelling resources

LEARNING GOALS FOR READING:

  • Read a variety of genres

  • Build reading stamina

  • Build and develop vocabulary

  • Choose independent reading level books

  • Develop and strengthen fluency

  • Develop comprehension skills

  • Make connections

  • Develop strategies for monitoring for meaning

  • Notate thoughts and feelings to prove/show evidence of one’s thinking

  • Develop envisioning skills while reading (think about five senses when creating a mind picture)

  • Analyze characters and their traits

  • Participate in book conversations and class discussions based on teacher read aloud texts

  • Strengthen understanding of story elements (e.g., plot, characters, setting)

  • Explore elements of non-fiction (table of contents, glossary, index, captions)

  • Use a storyteller’s voice while reading (attention to punctuation, pacing, expression, articulation)

  • Hone decoding skills (e.g., context, phonics, syntax, patterns)

LEARNING GOALS FOR WRITING:

FORMS OF WRITING: Fiction; Non-Fiction; Personal Narratives; Poetry; Writer’s Notebooks

  • Use writing process: plan; write; revise; self-edit; teacher-edit; publish

  • Learn to use writer’s notebook to collect thoughts and ideas

  • Write from own experiences

  • Learn to be a reflective writer

  • Focus and organize ideas to create a vignette

  • Construct a personal narrative

  • Incorporate detail, interesting language, dialogue, main idea, etc. into writing

  • Explore various elements of poetry (e.g., rhythm/music, word choice)

  • Write a variety of poems

  • Explore various elements of non-fiction and create non-fiction pieces

  • Write in complete sentences

  • Apply conventions of spelling, mechanics, and grammar

LEARNING GOALS FOR HANDWRITING:

CORE RESOURCE:

Handwriting Without Tears, Emily F. Knapton

LEARNING GOALS FOR WRITING:

  • Learn and practicelower case cursive alphabet

LEARNING GOALS FOR LISTENING AND SPEAKING:

  • Follow multi-step directions

  • Actively participate in class discussions

  • Speak clearly and with confidence

  • Ask relevant questions

  • Respond to questions with a complete thought

  • Explain thinking

  • Deliver oral presentations

Library & Information Literacy

LEARNING GOALS FOR Library & Information Literacy:

  • Begin to understand simple keyword search in the online catalog to locate books

  • Begin to understand Dewey Decimal classification

  • Define biography books

  • Identify parts of books

  • Recongize and describe the characteristics of award-winning books

  • Recognize specific genres

Music

LEARNING GOALS FOR MUSIC:

  • Gain an appreciation of classical music, world music, and composers

  • Learn repertoire of folk dancing (e.g., concentric circles, lines, sequences)

  • Discover and explore different uses of the voice

  • Understand how voice and body can be a musical instrument

  • Continue to build a repertoire of folk songs and singing games

  • Learn part singing through rounds and canons and partner singing

  • Use Curwen hand signs with the following notes: do; mi; so; la

  • Develop aural memory and inner hearing

  • Play percussion instruments (drums, sticks, non pitched)

  • Analyze singing phrases and detect patterns, like/unlike (forms)

  • Develop performance skills

Physical Education

LEARNING GOALS FOR PHYSICAL EDUCATION:

  • Demonstrate sportsmanship

  • Develop locomotor skills (e.g., running, hopping, sliding)

  • Develop non-locomotor skills (e.g., bending, twisting, stretching)

  • Develop body awareness

  • Develop hand/eye coordination

  • Develop foot/eye coordination

  • Develop balance

  • Engage in fitness activities

  • Develop ball skills

  • Participate in cooperative games

Science & Engineering

THEME: Think like a Scientist

UNITS:

Simple Machines
Life Cycles
Rock Cycles
Nutrition

LEARNING GOALS FOR SCIENCE:

  • Practice reading scientific literature

  • Begin to understand mistakes as part of process

  • Record observations by drawing a scientific sketch and labeling it with words

  • Scientific Method + ORHECK (Observation, Research, Question, Hypothesis, Experiment, Conclusion, Knowledge)

  • Begin to connect experiments and content

  • Ask scientific questions

  • Sort scientific questions and understand the difference between “what?” and “why?”questions

  • Discuss “what happened” in experiments and begin to theorize why

  • Practice steps of Engineering Design Process

  • Identify challenge, brainstorm, design, build, test, evaluate, redesign, share solution

  • Begin to understand concept of “trial and error”

Mathematics

CORE RESOURCES:

TERC Investigations in Mathematics, Pearson
Bridges in Mathematics Second Edition,
Math Learning Center
Context for Learning Mathematics,
Catherine Twomey Fosnot
Math for All, K-2
, Hal R. Melnick, Marvin Cohen, Babette Moeller, Karen Marschke-Tobier and Linda Metnetsky
Math Solutions,
Marilyn Burns

LEARNING GOALS FOR MATHEMATICS:

NUMBER SENSE AND OPERATIONS

  • Develop understanding of place value to 1,000

  • Count, read, write, and compare numbers to 1,000

  • Skip count by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s

  • Understand odd and even numbers

  • Use estimation strategies

  • Understand the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction

  • Know addition facts to 20 and subtraction facts from 10

  • Add and subtract with and without regrouping for two-digit numbers

  • Explore multiplication

  • Recognize and name common fractions

  • Explore fractions as parts of a whole and parts of a group

  • Solve addition and subtraction word problems

  • Use visual models and manipulatives to develop conceptual understanding of math concepts

MONEY

  • Know value of coins to $1.00

  • Know equivalents and make change

  • Solve problems using combinations of coins and bills

ALGEBRA AND FUNCTIONS

  • Recognize place value patterns on number grid

  • Understand, create, and predict patterns

  • Find missing addends

GEOMETRY AND MEASUREMENT

  • Identify, describe, classify, and sort two and three dimensional shapes

  • Explore symmetry and construct symmetrical designs

  • Solve spatial problems (2-D and 3-D problems, pattern block problems, tangram puzzles, etc.)

  • Measure length, weight, capacity, area, and perimeter in non-standard and standard units

  • Tell time to the minute

  • Know relationships of time (e.g., minutes in an hour, days in a month)

STATISTICS, DATA ANALYSIS, AND PROBABILITY

  • Collect, represent, and organize data

  • Interpret graphs

PROBLEM SOLVING

  • Develop and use a range of effective problem solving strategies

  • Explain problem solving method orally and in writing

  • Develop mental math strategies

Social Studies

UNITS: Togetherness + rural/urban *this curriculum is still a work-in-progress

Learning Goals for Social Studies

  • Begin exploring the links between past and present

  • Learn about the impact of landscape on lifestyle/livelihoods

  • Learn about the needs and wants

  • Learn about the roles and responsibilities of community members

  • Learn the cardinal directions and create compass roses

  • Learn about map symbols, legends, and coordinates

  • Develop and use map skills and make own maps

Please note: Curriculum Guides are an articulation of the core aspects of the academic program at Wildflower Collaborative and The Sweetgrass School; it is not intended to capture every concept and skill that is taught. Moreover, this Curriculum Guide does not reflect additional topics of study, which are emergent and inspired annually by student interests, teacher creativity, and current events.