Academics

Early Learning

  • Each year in fourth grade, Early Learning students inhabit the personalities of historical figures to answer questions about their lives.

  • Some Early Learning classes embark on imaginary trips to foreign countries, creating integrated learning dramas that teach students about language, foreign culture, geography, and history.

  • One class of Early Learning students discovers how many of them would have to lie down head to toe to equal the length of the dinosaurs they have studied.

  • Creative assignments, like this unusual book report, encourage higher orders of thinking by asking students to look beyond the who, what, where and when.

Starting with the very youngest students, Galloway pays particular attention to a child’s need to learn how to get along with other children and define his or her role within a group. Teachers focus on a young child’s ability to develop ideas, to expand and verbalize them, and to recognize and work with the ideas of other young children.

As the need to explore the world around them emerges, the children are offered extensive hands-on experiences that help them acquire new ideas and develop new skills in dealing with the world. As children are taught more sophisticated social skills based on understanding and respecting others, they begin to develop cooperative learning and teamwork skills, as well as responsibility and independence.

The language arts curriculum is dedicated to developing receptive and expressive use of the English language. Language arts can be divided into four major components: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Math concepts and skills are dealt with at the concrete level and presented through Everyday Math published by SRA. The science program fosters natural curiosity at its starting point. Students study diverse branches of science, including life, physical, earth, and aerospace. The social studies curriculum is designed to help students understand and value the connections between themselves and others. A major goal is to move the child from an ego-centered position to an other-centered position. In addition to these core subjects, most EL classrooms also incorporate thematic learning, where the teachers integrate foundational subjects around a central theme (like Japan, oceans, or the Olympics). Students might learn Japanese words and read books about Japanese folklore, do math and science problems that relate to Japan, and study Japanese culture and society.