Growth: Primary
As children reach the primary grades, they begin to exercise more independence and make choices within a more sophisticated framework of available activities. Children can now choose activities of interest to them outside the classroom, such as the science lab, math lab, the art room, the library, the woodshop, clay room, the weaving room, dance, music, drama, as well as on the playing fields or in the indoor playspace. The first overnights are held, opening the way for more frequent, longer trips in later grades. Children also take responsibility for more significant work jobs*, including the sharing of tasks necessary to maintain their classrooms and play areas. Class meetings become even more important, allowing time for sharing, for resolving differences, and for choosing and planning activities, such as writing and producing a play or sponsoring a carnival.
Academically, the greatest emphasis is on the development of reading and math skills. Both reading and math are approached from a number of perspectives: they are woven into class projects and learning activities, and they are presented through games, manipulatives, and other experiential ways of learning. During reading time, children write in personal journals, read individually selected books, work in traditional but self-paced workbooks, and enjoy non-traditional workpages created with their specific interests and needs in mind.
Peninsula's teachers pay close attention to each child's reading and math development. Because children work with their own materials and at individual paces, teachers monitor progress and assess needs, while encouraging and helping each child. To accomplish this, several teacher aides, including parents, assist in each classroom during reading, providing generous attention to each child and a high level of support for the teachers.
The child's knowledge of your belief in his best self
practically
always brings him through his difficulties,
provided the adult had
patience enough to wait;
when we seek to force progress according
to our own
standards of speed we spoil everything.
Most of us in
the beginning
had a hunch that this was true; now we know it.
— Josephine Whitney Duveneck