Mathematics
The math program is designed to help children approach math capably and confidently. We utilize a systematic spiral curriculum which increases in complexity while reinforcing and building upon previous experiences. Students regularly receive direct instruction in a large group, work independently at their seats and in cooperative groups, play math games in centers and through classroom computers, and use manipulative materials. As children grow more able to to extend their thinking from hands-on projects to abstract reasoning, they learn to employ concrete, pictorial, verbal, and symbolic models for problem solving. Real-life problems and data provide opportunities for students to analyze, organize, develop strategies, estimate, and calculate. The creative and analytical approaches stressed in the math program produce ways of thinking that have value for future learning.
In our Pre-K and Kindergarten classrooms, teachers encourage the free exploration and manipulation of classroom materials. Many of the teacher directed activities involve counting, sorting, classifying, and comparing. Students work on assessing attributes, building recognition numbers and geometric shapes, duplicating and creating patterns, estimating, graphing, identifying two and three dimensional objects, introduced to the concept of time, and addition and subtraction. Children will write numerals 0-9, learn about ordinal numbers, recognize simple patterns, continue the sequence and make up new patterns, estimate and compare items, develop spatial sense, recognize proximity, make and talk about simple graphs of everyday objects, and apply math thinking to everyday applications.
The focus of the math program for First and Second Grades is on helping children understand key math concepts, develop and communicate strategies for solving a variety of problems, and use estimation and number operations to find solutions. Students shift from a reliance on manipulatives to facility with paper and pencil and mental computations. Students work on whole number computation, money, geometry and spatial relationships, measurement, fractions, data analysis, statistical probability, word problems, are introduced to the concept of multiplication and division, analysis of numeric data in charts and graphs, and decimals and percents.