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Curriculum for 7 - 11 year olds

Subjects are always taught as part of the Four Harmonies or in terms of their relationship to the whole.

We have found that children enjoy unit stories that continue for approximately ten segments and lasting twenty minutes each. The morning following each segment of the unit story, an interactive activity serves as a child-friendly form of review.

People are by nature social beings. In fact, one of the main draws for the children coming to school is to interact with one another. The teacher's tasks include devising learning activities that honor that desire, rather than keeping the children silent and separate.

Interactive activities offer opportunities for the children to harmoniously relate to one another as they deepen their comprehension of the unit story. These social learning activities also offer a beautiful opportunity for the synthesis of learning about the harmonies in the world and relating harmoniously to one another. The interactive lessons that begin the day's work can include challenges such as:

Human Matching - Reinforcing the etymology and vocabulary of lessons in the life sciences needn't be a boring exercise. The teacher can prepare sets of color-coded matching cards which include the linguistic origins on one color, say red, and the modern word on another color, perhaps yellow. The teacher can distribute these to the children, send them to opposite sides of the room, and then let them find their match. Much lively discussion and milling around ensues as each child discovers his partner.

Large Mat Group Labeling - The children can draw cards that are labels for a large map or pictorial diagram that covers several square feet of the floor. The teacher prepares handy reference maps or pictorial diagrams so the children learn to place the labels correctly. The children can also pair up older with younger so they can help each other place the labels in the proper place. When we study human anatomy and physiology, the group can label a diagram that is attached to one of the children.

Treasure Hunts - In plastic sandwich bags, the teacher places plastic replicas of animals from the various classes. She then places a rhyming couplet in each bag,which describes that particular animal. Before the children arrive, she hides the baggies around the school grounds. Having placed folded duplicate copies of the couplets in a basket, she gathers the children around the circle rug. Each child is invited to withdraw one slip of paper. After all have read their couplets, the group disperses to find their match.

Dramatizations - Grammar lends itself to dramatizations in which the different parts of speech all play parts. For instance, Queen Noun may demand a supply of adjectives from the princes and princesses. Or Queen Noun and King Verb may demand that their subjects supply them with nouns and verbs to make royal sentences. Simple props like gold and silver crowns are all it takes to elicit enthusiasm from the children.

Human Diagrams - When we are studying tiers of classifications in zoology, botany, and geology, human diagrams help the children make sense of the material. For instance, the queen of the phylum Invertebrata can sit on a chair placed on a table. Around her can be the princes and princesses who are the classes. Each one holds a card that has a picture and a label.

When we study longitude and latitude, one child can sit on a chair on a large round table representing the North Pole. She dangles strings of yarn to represent the longitude lines. After the children place the proper degree markers on each string, the teacher can send one at a time to "fly" to a particular longitude line.

Spontaneous Review Enactments - The morning following each story segment of the history (Our Place in Time) unit, the teacher challenges either the whole class or groups in the class to organize themselves for a spontaneous enactment of the previous day's lesson. There is never recrimination for missed details. This is merely an opportunity for the teacher to learn how successful her teaching was, and in a friendly, lighthearted way, nudge the information into the enactments.

The Experiment Crews - The children arrange themselves in small groups to perform experiments in physics, biology, geology, electricity, or whatever the science the group is studying. For example, a series of experiments may be to discover the properties of light and color using mirrors, flashlights, blind corners, and color wheels on pencils. We provide forms to write up and illustrate the experiments according to the steps of the scientific method. Each child uses the form in his individual way. Some write a sentence for each step and draw the experiment. Some just write a few words; still others simply draw the experiment.

Community Service - Involvement in outreach projects to help restore environments ravaged by human activity. Involvement in outreach projects to bring relief to people suffering from some form of infirmity. Involvement in free public performances that bring joy and inspiration to those who may have sunk in to some degree of hopelessness.

Creativity Crew - Creativity Crew is the name we have given to the group that meets for team building, creativity, and spontaneous problem solving. The challenges may be instructions to build a structure with a limited number of materials given only five minutes. For instance, the teacher may give them paper, paper clips, and address labels and challenge them to build a bridge.

Creativity Crew may also take on a real creative project for the school/community. For example, one year the team leader challenged the children to design a chicken coop that could be easily moved around the acreage. The result was blueprint for a rolling chicken coop. The next challenge was to actually construct it, a project that took a good month to gather materials and complete. As the children get older they can take on projects for the community beyond the school grounds. The sky's the limit.

Creativity Crew is an excellent means for the children to learn to collaborate. In order to achieve success, they have to patiently and respectfully listen to one another's ideas. They learn think clearly and articulate so that others can understand. Group collaboration that begins with brainstorming, requires assigning individual tasks, and persevering with the group until completion of the project. This can be a very challenging and valuable process for children who have never had to cooperate so extensively.

Centers - change to reflect the curren unit. In a holistic classroom, the classrooms also serve the development of the multiple intelligences. Seldom do any of them stimulate only a single intelligence. For instance, the book a child is reading may be enhancing not only verbal/linguistic intelligence, but also interpersonal and/or intrapersonal intelligences. However, we can scan the classroom to insure that the centers represent a complete spectrum. The hands-on activities in several centers develop the fine motor aspect of bodily/kinesthetic. However, eurythmy, outdoor sports, and free play more fully stimulate this intelligence.

Project Center - Ongoing projects are a necessary part of each unit. The projects vary in form to include three dimensional models, dioramas, collections, salt maps, pictorial timelines and pictorial flowcharts. They may be completed in a day or include steps that require several days. Sometimes they are individual, othertimes, they involve the whole class.

Handicraft Center- The current handicraft, knitting perhaps, is stored in individual baskets and is always available to the children.

Reading and Library Area - In addition to a central library, we like to have a smaller library of several hundred fiction and non-fiction books immediately available to the children. A partial enclosure with cushiony places invites two children or three children at a time to quietly browse and read. Also, the library includes a tape player for music, and books on tape.

Bright Flame Publishing Center - This center contains materials for bookmaking and writing short stories, journals, and poems. We provide lined paper so the children can write on every other line. When the children come to the teacher for editing, she can make corrections on the in-between lines. Adjacent to this center is a writing computer. The children may take their edited pages and rewrite them using the computer.

Newspaper Publishing Center - This center is for submitting articles for the class newspaper. A couple of fifth or sixth graders who are interested can serve as editors with the assistance of an adult. The newspaper serves as a wonderful incentive for creative writing and research. It helps if one computer is devoted strictly to the newpaper.

Math Area - The shelves containing math materials are close to the teaching mat. These materials are out most of the morning for lessons and individual use. Beyond these basic teaching materials are measuring materials, and construction projects that require measurement, varying mathematical operations, and geometry. Graphing, money and time are taught with fun interactive assignments such as setting up a store or graphing different data concerning classmates.

Invention /Dismantle/Discovery Center - This area is very different according to the curriculum. It will include a microscope and slides for one unit, and cultural or paleontological artifacts during another. During other parts of the school year there are materials for building and invention either from kits or scraps. At another time, some mechanical device such as a discarded camera may await tiny screwdrivers and eager fingers.

Music Center - In this area is a keyboard and headset with music and sheets or computer for composition. The center can extend the practice and learning that occurs in individual or group lessons.