Specialist Program

In the Weaving Room, Alexandra, affectionately known as "Lasagna," teaches that every knot of tangled yarn is a puzzle, not a problem.
Weaving is a unique offering at Peninsula school. During the Activities period, students self-determine what project they want to start and see to completion. If a student is excited about doing a table loom or even a floor loom, they are required to master the seemingly simple block loom. The foundational skills of under-over, knotting and unknotting, and figuring out weavers' tangles are invaluable as they practice hand-eye coordination,  pattern recognition, and problem solving. This lays the groundwork for the day when they feel confident tackling Demeter–the largest floor loom with 420 warp ends and a complex 50+ line overdraft pattern.
My favorite part about this job is seeing how kids apply their own creativity to traditional looms. They are quick to push boundaries by experimenting with new techniques and designs. At first, kids are motivated to have a finished product, but as they get into the rhythm of weaving, they begin to fall in love with the process and creation itself. The joy of weaving is in each passing of the yarn, and so the minute a student successfully takes home a woven piece of cloth or beaded jewelry, they are back the next day, ready for more!

Music in the Lower School focuses on building foundational skills that will help them “rock out” in their Upper School years in Rock Band. The basic principles of rhythm, melody, and harmony are built upon year after year so that when they reach 4th grade students can:

• Have a strong sense of beat and easily find the beat to a variety of songs in many varying genres.
• Identify different rhythmic patterns and passages.
• Sing a major scale and repeat easy melodic patterns.
• Hold their own part - whether singing or playing classroom instruments - against another complimentary part.
• Compose simple phrases using correct rhythmic and melodic notation.
• Identify and have exposure to a wide variety of musical genres from many cultures.

These topics are covered during regular class instruction and reinforced during activity time through a variety of songs and games.

During the week, there are also specialized activity sessions for students in 2nd grade and above, such as the LS Choir and ukulele classes. These specialized activity times are another way to expose students to a wide variety of musical opportunities and expressions.

Starting in K-1, students begin working in the Woodshop in small groups with their classmates. The goal is to help them become comfortable in the shop while learning the basics of tool safety and simple building techniques. By the time they choose to attend Woodshop during their afternoon Activities classes, they already have the foundational skills needed to join a class with students of varying ages and experience levels. Collaboration and skill-sharing are encouraged, and older or more experienced students often assist younger or newer students, offering guidance on tool selection or techniques.

Students are also responsible for managing their own projects, keeping track of their materials, and putting away tools when finished. As they get older and develop their skills in the Woodshop, students work on more complex projects that require planning, precision, joinery, and finishings to help their pieces last. Recent examples of student work have included side tables, longboards, and lamps utilizing intricate joinery practices.

One of the most exciting school-wide community events is the annual Go-Kart Races at the end of the year, where students band together to create wacky and functional go-karts to race against other kids. You’ll often see Lower Schoolers ask Upper Schoolers to push their karts because there is a higher likelihood of winning!

There is an enormous amount of pride in project completion and students are able to speak to the methods that they used in creating their work. Arts-based learning fosters confidence in students and this truly comes through in their process.

Science classes in the K-8 program are geared towards delivering foundational scientific concepts to our young learners. As such, a diverse repertoire of fields are covered, from astronomy to zoology. At Peninsula School, each of these elements are effectively offered in a rich context of cross-disciplinary, collaborative learning, taking advantage of all the resources our diverse teaching staff bring. Deep dives into science themes are complemented by explorations through field trips, writing, the arts, and other fields. This mosaic approach creates the richest and best remembered, even cherished experiences for students. You can read more about Lower School Science and Upper School Science on their program pages.

While the classroom Science Program is structured to deliver a planned but flexible curriculum to students in each class, Activities time offers a completely different approach and set of opportunities for engaging with the subject and each other. 

The majority of Science Activities are set up to be largely self-directed. This nudges each student to wrestle with deciding how they wish to spend their time, to delve into their own specific scientific interests, and to negotiate with other students from a wide age range on taking turns or working together. By navigating the social aspect of Activities while having choices and being creative with Science Room offerings, many magical moments ensue! Inspiration can come from exploring a new idea of their own, or from a eureka moment from another student. Where students gravitate, and how they hold themselves is greatly revealing of their character and enormously fun to facilitate.  

At Peninsula School, the Clay Studio is much more than a place to shape clay—it is a space where students grow as artists and individuals. Through hands-on learning, thoughtful conversations, and open-ended creative exploration, students gain technical skills, cultural knowledge, and a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them.

• In Kindergarten: Students explore clay by pinching, cutting, coiling, and engaging with the material directly, without tools.
• In Lower School: Students create self-portraits, shaping faces out of clay while observing themselves in mirrors. Clay work becomes more complex as students learn to build 3D forms using slabs and other techniques.
• In Upper School: Students learn to throw pots on kick and electric wheels, mastering skills like centering and grounding and the gentle technique to form the clay into bowls, vases, cups, plates, and the inevitable goof-ups.
• In Eighth Grade, students explore the art of abstraction and create intricate sculptures, experimenting with detailed techniques and adding finer touches.
• Students of all ages build vernacular such as kiln, bone dry, greenware, slip, bisque ware, and burnishing, which become part of their everyday language as they work.
• Students select glazes based on personal preferences and artistic goals, with guidance on how different glazes affect their work. The studio offers traditional and modern glazing options, including low-fire, mid-fire, watercolors, and acrylics.

Through collaboration with classroom teachers, projects are frequently tied to students' current studies in social studies. For example, when students learn about Native American history, the Clay Studio becomes a space to explore Pueblo Pottery. Using the coil method, students create their own pottery while discussing the history, culture, and lives of the Southwestern tribes. This integration allows students to connect art to their broader learning, making history come alive through hands-on creation.

One of the most exciting aspects of the Clay Studio is the open-ended creation time during Activities. Here, students have the freedom to explore their own ideas without specific prompts or assignments which encourages them to come up with their own unique projects. When they hang out in the clay studio with their friends, it often turns into an initiation of a group project and it is truly magical to see what they come up with and create.

Our morning curricula are designed to be both challenging and approachable for every student in the class. The overarching goals are introducing and developing mastery of skills, grasping of concepts and deepening understandings in age appropriate ways, using a myriad materials and methods with all age groups. Any given project/lesson might be mainly about skill building or idea building, or it might be designed for a finished product that is exceptional, or designed for no particular product but instead for practice. 

A given project might be valuable scaffolding for building the student’s visual vocabulary over time. We ask the students to consider how artists show how they feel? How artists express their ideas? How do WE, as artists, express our feelings and ideas? We begin this work in the early years and continue up through 8th grade. Along the way, we explore questions such as What is the role of art? How do we learn to question, and what questions can we ask through Art? We say "a picture speaks a thousand words," how is this possible? And how can I say a thousand words with a picture? By the Upper school, Students will deeply understand complex concepts, including ones as sophisticated as What is the difference between Art and Propaganda?

Afternoon Art Activities offers a creative space, open time, and open choices for artistic exploration, both physically and mentally. Students have time to integrate, process, and take ownership of the concepts and skills learned in morning Art class times. It is a time for true creative problem solving because students come with their own ambitious innovative ideas, and a self-determined goal of seeing them manifest. In the afternoons, multi-age peer-to-peer inspiration and teamwork are powerful drivers of innovation.

Class Library periods build on specific learning objectives and skills across the years. Class times are primarily structured around literature - from picture books to novels, there is a consistency of a shared group experience of listening to a story and engaging with the material. For our youngest students, themes include friendship, kindness, understanding our emotions, acceptance of others, and language patterns. As the children get older, these themes are built upon, and new themes are added including: diversity within families, stories inspired by real people, being part of a community, understanding justice and injustice, being an upstander, and more. As the grades progress and the books become longer and more complex, the classes delve into character studies, understand differences in genres, examine language, and broadly expand their skills as critical readers. Library and research skills are also part of the curriculum and involve (but are not limited to) learning where to find specific books in the library, how to use the Dewey Decimal System, how to use a research database to find appropriate articles, and how to read nonfiction sources critically.

During Activities for many children, the library can be a welcome, somewhat quieter pause in a very full day. It is a space they all know is available to them for self-care in the hard work of being a kid, and is an important piece in how at Peninsula we nurture the whole child. In Lower School Activities time the children have time to find a book, to peruse the shelves, and often will pour over books together. We always have a long story time, with stories varying daily, and we often end the Activities time with riddles. In Upper School Activities, students find their favorite books to read (and re-read!), and we have a shelf full of board games and word games, including Peninsula stand-bys Anagrams and Speed Scrabble, and weekly sessions set specifically for Magic the Gathering and Settlers of Catan.   

The Upper School Music Program is unique in that there is a set schedule for each student band to rehearse during lunch and Activities throughout the year with the goal of preparing for the highly anticipated Spring “Rock” Concert. Forming a band involves collaboration, interpersonal communication, and creative problem solving.

• Students explore each instrument–guitar, bass, drums, keyboard– learning to hold it, make sounds, and play basic notes, and care for the instruments.
• A teacher-guided process helps students decide who they will play in a band with, what instrument they will play, and what song(s) they would like to learn.
• Once a week, students practice all the elements that make up a song: rhythm, notes, chords, melodies, lyrics, microphone technique, and sound balancing.
• As students advance, they may increase their skill set by learning to harmonize vocals, play chord progressions, learn melodies on instruments, and play more rhythmically complex sets on drums.
• After they have mastered their song, students then have the opportunity to record it using Logic Pro. They learn microphone placement, tracking as a group and as individuals, and how to record each instrument individually then layer it to create the final product- just like the professionals.

Throughout the year, students hold themselves and each other accountable to be in the Band Room at their designated practice time. The adversity that comes with learning a new instrument and/or song while collaborating with their peers is invaluable to the process. As a group, each band prepares themselves for the Rock Concert, and the work put into each practice, whether smooth or bumpy, helps to shape them into empathetic leaders and collaborators. They learn how to perform in front of the entire school, for parents, and the wider community which requires composure, bravery, and focus to stay on task through mistakes and distractions (mostly from all the cheering.)

The interpersonal skills cultivated during the Upper School Music process are crucial to not only their success as a band, but as people going into the world after Peninsula.

PE at Peninsula School is a place for Preschool through 8th grade students to develop their own relationship with movement. Actions like running, jumping, chasing, fleeing, and many others are foundational skills that are discovered and built upon in PE. While an outside perspective might see this as just playing games—and, indeed, that is what we are doing—it’s the things that happen within those games that really make PE special. In any given game, you’ll see compromise and relationship-building, as well as risk-taking and patience, to name just a few. These examples go beyond the traditional physical skills that naturally develop in PE.

All of this happens in a space where students have agency and trust that they are safe. This is the key to ensuring that students feel their PE experience is successful, however that looks to them. The ultimate goal is to create lifelong movers.

There are multiple opportunities each week for students to participate in PE. Every class has a scheduled PE once a week and we play a variety of games that broaden their skill-building including physicality, precision, strategy, sneakiness, quick-footedness, and so much more. Outside of their weekly PE time, students also have the opportunity to join PE Activities. In Activities, students learn that the choice of what to play requires group consensus. Students across grade levels reach agreements based on personal preference and what works well for the group. Here is where they are given an opportunity to nurture their love for movement by playing the games they most enjoy.