An Overview of the K-8 Curriculum

Kindergarten

The Kindergarten Program integrates social and academic skills through teacher organized and directed activities.  Throughout the year children build on their entry level skills in order to be well-prepared for first grade.  The Village School’s program expects notable growth by the end of the school year which results in acquisition of the following capabilities in order to be ready for first grade:

• Personal Responsibilities—put personal belongings away, and help put group belongings away; complete chore or cleanup task that takes five to ten minutes independently; follow daily routine independently.
• Group Respect—become quiet when signaled, within five-ten seconds; be respectful of other people’s physical space; remain on task or focused for about ten to thirty minutes, when provided with something interesting to do or listen to ; cooperate with teacher in circle activities for a minimum of five to fifteen minutes; stay seated during activities or meals for fifteen to thirty minutes; take turns when speaking, allow others turns independently; keep hands on own person, when reminded once.
• Academic—recite alphabet/letter recognition; capability of writing name; capability of reciting phone number and up to thirty songs or verses; basic color and shape recognition; paint one solid page; have a working knowledge of basic activities provided at school.

First Grade

Achieve mastery of main lesson work pertaining to Fairy tales, folk tales and nature stories, introduction to literacy, letter formation, phonics, the writing process, story writing, poetry writing, letter writing, punctuation and capitalization, qualities of the numbers, introduction to the four processes in arithmetic, fact families, measurement, time, money, place value, charts/graphs, problem solving, skip counting and lower multiplication tables, pattern recognition, simple plane geometric figures, science topics may include (but not be limited to) insects, life cycle of the butterfly, plant studies, soil investigations, liquids, animal studies, and dinosaurs.

Second Grade

Legends and myths of helpers of humanity, animal fables, folk tales from North America and other continents, some North American native legends; literacy blocks would continue to build on the work completed in grade 1: story, poetry, journal, and letter writing, drafts and the process of writing, the elements of a story (setting, plot, characters, theme); cursive writing is introduced through dynamic form drawing; continued work with the four processes in mathematics and word problems, place value, number patterns and relationships, measurement, data gathering and analysis, plane and solid geometric figures.  Science topics may include bees, bubbles, insect and animal habitats, and schoolyard ecology.

Third Grade

Creation stories from around the world are first introduced here; agriculture study;  human habitats and house building; community process and participation; clothing and culture; literacy blocks incorporating grammar and language mechanics are taught and practiced in the context of modes of writing, parts of speech, topic sentences and paragraph structure; mathematics will include higher multiplication tables and measurement, common fractions and decimals, time and money, redistributing (carrying and borrowing), number patterns, prime numbers, geometry and problem solving; science topics may include soils, grains, agriculture, carbon, nitrogen and water cycles, liquid explorations, aquatic habitats and, beach ecology.

Fourth Grade

North American history as seen through the viewpoint of Oregon and its development from the time of its indigenous people; local geography and map making (starting from immediate surroundings, and working up to neighborhoods, city, county, state and region); Norse and Finnish mythology and sagas;  age appropriate literacy work includes letter writing, verb tenses, abbreviations, personal pronouns, poetry and alliteration;  math work  will include reviewing arithmetic operations, times tables, story problems, long division, averages, fractions, simple factoring, perimeter, area, and volume; science topics may include study of the animal kingdom, crime lab chemistry and fingerprinting, simple electrical circuits,  and space technology.

Fifth Grade

Ancient history and myths from ancient India, to ancient Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, up to ancient Greece, the lives and legends of Rama and Sita, Buddah, Zarathustra, Gilgamesh, Khufu, Plato, Aristotle, Achilles, Odysseus, and Alexander the Great; continued development of writing skills with attention to focus, voice, organization, mechanics and the modes; geography of North America with reference to vegetation, topography, agriculture, and economics;  math blocks include decimal fractions, fractions, mixed numerals, ratios and proportion, the metric system, geometry, estimation, data collection and analysis using number lines bar and line graphs; science topics may include botany and plant studies, simple machines, dissolving rates,  crime lab chemistry. Participation in the Greek Games.

Sixth Grade

Roman and medieval history (including the fall of Troy, founding of Rome, the Republic, the Empire, advent of Christianity, the Crusades, the rise of Islam);  ancient African kingdoms of Mali and Timbuktu; geometric drawing; astronomy; geology and mineralogy; European and Middle Eastern geography; physics (sound, light, heat, magnetism and electricity); age appropriate language arts including writing for various purposes and debates;  math work includes pre-algebra, geometry, business math (percentages, interest, discount, etc.), review and strengthen ratio and proportion.

Seventh Grade

Middle Ages, age of exploration, the Renaissance and Reformation; Arthurian Legends and the age of chivalry; Asian, African and South American geography and cultural history; age appropriate language arts including various forms of writing;  physics (mechanics, magnetism and electricity),  human physiology and nutrition;  science includes  chemistry and astronomy; math work includes  pre-algebra, geometry (Pythagorean theorem, simple Euclidean proofs, laws of perspective drawing), powers, roots, integers, formulae.

Eighth Grade

Literature (short stories, letters, dramatic contrast in Shakespearean drama); age appropriate language arts; the age of revolution (Industrial, American, French); cultural geography/anthropology; world geography; human physiology (bones and muscles); learning to discern media; intro to organic chemistry; physics (acoustics, optics, hydraulics, aerodynamics, meteorology); contemporary history topics; math includes algebra and geometry (platonic solids, proofs, volumes of solids, laws of loci); binary opposition math and the origins and development of the computer.

Specialty Subjects

Movement

Physical education is vital to the curriculum of the Village School at all grade levels. The goals of the movement program are that the students have fun and be able to recreate through playing in order to lay the foundations for the development of a lifetime of enjoyable physical activity.  Between the ages of 7-14 students focus on sport, games, and movement to develop spatial awareness and the capacity to form the many-sided judgments so necessary to critical thinking.  Students learn to play both cooperatively and competitively. In grade 5 students participate with other Waldorf Schools in the Greek Games. Middle school students participate in a regional track meet.

Foreign Language

Students in grades 1-8 receive Spanish instruction twice a week. The Spanish teacher incorporates the same basic pedagogical principles as those that underlie the teaching of the main lesson blocks.  Instead of worksheets and textbooks, students learn through movement, songs, and recitations.  

Art

The art program integrates what is being learned academically. Art periods develop the child's visual and tactile capacities through painting, drawing, modeling, etc.  The teacher nurtures the child's aesthetic awareness and creativity, and allows room for spontaneous self-expression.

Handwork

Handwork or handcrafts are, by definition, any work or creation executed primarily with the hands, sometimes with the aid of different tools, utilizing various media.  Our goal is to help each student make beautiful, useful items that generate a feeling of inner wholeness and an ability for creative expression within the child.  The secondary goal is to develop strong hand-eye coordination, manual dexterity, and a sense of pride for the child.  These goals are accomplished in a progressive manner, following other areas of the curriculum.  Beginning in the kindergarten with finger knitting, we move through the early grades with increasingly demanding knitting projects, crocheting, into hand embroidery, hand sewing, weaving, leatherwork and culminating in machine sewing by grades 6, 7, and 8. Woodworking using simple hand tools in the middle school grades is also a part of the Handwork program.

Music and Drama

Music and the dramatic arts are an integral part of every grade.  Beginning in Kindergarten, daily singing helps teach tone recognition, melody, harmony, imitation, rhythm, as well as signaling transitions.  Moving through the grades, the children continue singing but are also introduced to the pentatonic flute in grade 1 and to the recorder in grade two.  Students will continue with the recorder through eighth grade.  By grades five and six, two and three part music for recorder and voice is done regularly.  The violin will be introduced in grade three and continue through grade five. The eventual goal of the School is to establish a Village School string orchestra. Students in grades six through eight learn to play guitars and experience being part of marimba ensembles.  Students perform in class plays and in all-school musical productions a few times each year.