Lower School
From Walking to Running
Our Lower School program spans grades one through five, taking students from their first steps into formal academics to confidently running, ready to leap into middle school. These years are ones of rapid academic growth: boundless curiosity, the desire to understand the world, a growing consciousness of themselves in community. Our curriculum taps into those inclinations and gives them space and nourishment to thrive.
The life and discourse of each of the Lower School classrooms teaches students to respect the ethnicity, family structure, and culture of each member of the classroom community, and they work together to build a community that invites each member to participate. They learn to set personal and community goals, to identify their own strengths, and recognize that everyone learns in different ways and each has the potential to progress and succeed.
With two looping years – Grade 1/2 and Grades 3/4 – each student has space to grow and develop at their own rate under the care of teachers who really know them deeply. Grade 5 teachers prepare students to step up into middle school by providing explicit instruction that strengthens independence and executive functioning skills like organization and time management. They also incorporate larger multi-step academic projects in the curriculum. The middle school Drama, Spanish, and after-school Athletics programs also begin in Grade 5.
Explore By Grade
Grades 1 & 2
First and Second grades are a time of amazing development. Reading and writing evolve in leaps and bounds. Comfort and agility with numbers and computation grow apace. Students learn to explore science from inquiry to experiment to understanding. Ability with materials expands opportunities for creative expression through art and music. Though each child travels the path to being a reader, writer, mathematician, scientist, and artist differently, our teachers are skilled at meeting them where they are, engaging them beyond comparisons with peers, and challenging them in the ways that steadily grow their confidence and skill.
Our teachers are experienced with the great deal of variation across children or even within a single child in these grades. For example, one child might excel in mathematics and need support in learning to read, while another child might have cognitive behaviors typical of older students and social-emotional behaviors more closely associated with younger students. Because of the many ways in which first and second graders can vary, our program’s flexibility allows us to differentiate content and teaching strategies to support children across a wide range of learning styles, abilities, and developmental levels.
The CFS T-Shirt project
As part of the Grade 1/2 Math curriculum, students explore supply, demand, and expense (including looking at other nations and costs of items) as part of the CFS T-Shirt project. They collaborate to design the t-shirt and select a charity to support with the proceeds. And they learn everything about selling t-shirts, from getting the word out through marketing and networks, working at the t-shirt table, writing receipts, and counting change.
Read More About the Grade 1 & 2 Curriculum
Grades 3 & 4
Students in grades three and four are making a significant transition, moving from a concrete approach to learning to a more abstract one. At this age, children are increasingly peer-driven and seek out close friendships. They are learning to voice their opinions and listen deeply to others and compromise. Third- and fourth-graders are enthusiastic and passionate, they are ready to take on the world and continually developing the skills required to do so.
Students’ increased interest in logic, rules, and how things work, coupled with this enthusiasm and passion, led us to create a program for third- and fourth-grade students which:
- is academically challenging.
- tackles issues of justice and fairness.
- develops their collaborative skills.
- supports development of increased organization.
While both grades may practice the same skills, there are a number of distinctions between the work of third- and fourth-graders. Fourth-graders are expected to elaborate upon their work in greater length and detail and work with greater efficiency and independence. Students have the opportunity to experience different roles in a community. At times, they are a leader. At other times, they practice being members of a group, and learning from their peers.
Adopt a Tree Project
In Grade 3 & 4, students are given a CFS tree to study throughout the year. The students get to know their tree, as it exists on the CFS campus, but also as one of a specific species. They research the tree, sketch the bark, leaves, flowers throughout the year. They observe it in all kinds of weather, and research facts about each species. They share and compare with their classmates and see how each tree differs and where they are similar. And each tree becomes a “friend” on campus that many students continue to visit and care about beyond 3/4.
Read More About the Grade 3 & 4 Curriculum
Grade 5
Fifth graders are remarkable for their competence in many areas. They are ravenous learners and hungry for information about the world. They are increasingly oriented towards the feedback of their peers, rather than their families or teachers. They take relationships very seriously, and, because they are beginning the transition to puberty at different times, there are often shifts in identity, friendships, and social groups. They are highly interested in fairness and rules.
We developed our Grade 5 program to…
Be academically challenging
We fill the day with compelling ideas, information, and projects. We ask students to think deeply and critically about what they are learning. We require them to do their best work, and help them set goals for themselves. Increasingly, they are asked to take on and appreciate other points of view through fictional character development and through role play.
Develop independence
Students receive assignments at the beginning of the week and they have to prioritize and pace themselves. Projects may last a week or two or as much as several months, which requires them to sustain effort over a longer period of time. They also begin to take more responsibility for resolving conflicts, and work together as a class to resolve classroom issues.
Encourage leadership
Grade 5 students collect compost for the whole lower school, and engage in volunteer service at Food Link. They model behavior for younger Lower School students, help to plan and lead the Lower School Community Meetings, and are supportive friends for their second grade buddies.
The Design a Park Project
When people think about project-based learning, math is not what comes to mind. But in Grade 5, CFS students take their math learning and apply it to the Park Project. Beginning from sketches and discussion, students are tasked with creating a park that meets an urban community need. Then they take those big ideas and map them onto grid paper, calculating the area and what it would cost to build their vision with the materials they planned. And finally, they review sample proposals from the Cambridge Participatory Budget and write their own proposal to a fictional municipal government for their park.