Elementary
Language Arts Program :
Transitional Kindergarten
Our TK program uses Heggerty Phonics for Phonemic Awareness Development and Learning Without Tears for Writing, Letters and Sound Awareness.
Kindergarten-5th grade
Our Community School uses i-Ready to assist in supporting literacy development. Students take a diagnostic test three times a year to help guide our teachers on data driven instruction. The diagnostic test is a computer adaptive test i-Ready helps provide a personalized learning path to support student engagement and boost overall student achievement.
At OCS, our teachers in Kindergarten-5th grade use Amplify Core Knowledge Language Arts (CKLA) curriculum. This curriculum is aligned to the latest research in the Science of Reading. Amplify-CKLA provides a research based approach to implement foundational skills and building background knowledge that meets the criteria under the Every Student Succeed Act (ESSA) in Tier 1, which is the most rigorous tier of evidence.
English Language Development-Integrated and Designated Instruction
Students working towards English Language proficiency are provided additional support in our English Language Arts program through small group instruction using Amplify Language Studio with our ELD specialist and/or our Instructional Aides.
Intervention & Language Arts
Our Intervention Teacher uses a multitude of research based programs to support development in literacy. The Intervention teacher works collaboratively with the general education teacher and the results from the i-Ready diagnostic to determine how best to support students in improving their literacy learning. Programs that are used may include: Read Naturally, Lexia, UFLI, and Heggerty.
Writing:
For writing, teachers plan mini-lessons and create writing projects that align with grade level standards and are also a central part of many interdisciplinary studies. OCS writing instruction adheres to the following guiding principles:
- Provides California Common Core Standards-Based Instruction in writing strategies, writing applications, and written and oral language conventions: Teachers use the standards to plan writing projects and lessons to teach explicit skills in writing conventions and strategies. The students will demonstrate their learning in ongoing formative assessments of their daily writing and in benchmark writing assessments that are tied to the interdisciplinary study.
- Provides multiple times each week for children to work on their writing.
- During each day’s writing workshop, children rehearse, plan, draft, revise, and edit writing on topics that are usually chosen by the child. During the year in a writing workshop, the children work on a variety of writing, including personal narratives, essays or feature articles, short fiction, poems, procedural (or how-to) writing, and other nonfiction of various sorts. At the end of a unit of study, children’s writing is “published.” Publishing can be as simple as having a class of older children meets with younger children to read aloud their finished work. However, it does incorporate taking a draft through the phases of the writing process until it is in keeping with standardized English grammar and spelling as appropriate for the grade level.
- Explicitly teach children habits and strategies of writing, and then coach them so they can apply those strategies during independent writing. Explicit instruction is usually provided through the ten-minute-long mini-lesson, which will occur at the start of writing workshops. Teachers are encouraged to design mini-lessons in which they demonstrate a strategy and provide children with assisted practice using that strategy.
- Assess and coach writers through individual and, sometimes, small group conferences. These conferences generally begin with research and assessment. Teachers move among children during the writing workshops, holding three- to five-minute-long conferences or longer small group meetings as students write and reflect on their writing.
The core of writing instruction is built upon the steps of the writing process, i.e. brainstorming, drafting, revising, editing, & publishing. Beginning in TK/kindergarten, teachers in every grade guide students through this process so that students become independent writers who can write on demand for a variety of audiences and purposes. The writing process approach includes the use of mini-lessons. Teachers present “mini-lessons” which follow a set format: introduction of the concept and connection to the writing students are doing; modeling of the writing concept; shared application of the concept; students try it on their own; students apply the concept to their own writing. As students grow older they learn how to write in more genres and at increasingly deeper levels of depth and complexity.
Our 3rd-5th grade classes also use Daily 5 as a way to allow students academic choice while working in the area of Language Arts. Daily 5 is a literacy framework that instills behaviors of independence, creates a classroom of highly engaged readers, writers, and learners, and provides teachers with the time and structure to meet diverse student needs. During Daily 5, students are able to determine which activities to work on, while understanding that all assigned tasks will need to be completed by the end of the week. Teachers also use this time to work with small groups on specific ELA skills, offering additional to support to those in need, and additional extensions where appropriate.
Math Program:
Transitional Kindergarten
Our Transitional Kindergarten program uses the research-based math curriculum Bridges, an inquiry-based and student centered curriculum. The curriculum is made up of three integrated component: Problems and Investigations, Work Places and Number Corner.
Kindergarten-5th grade
Go Math is used for students in K-5th grades. This math program is aligned to our constructivist approach to learning. Go Math follows the 5E instructional model which consists of five phases: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. Teachers encourage the use of manipulatives and drawings with the goal of transitioning from concrete pictorial understanding to a more abstract mathematical reasoning.
Mathematical Tools as Learning Supports (Manipulatives and Pictorials):
- Each user must construct his/her own meaning about mathematical tools
- Tools are used with purpose to solve problems and not as props
- Tools are used to help students record, communicate and think about mathematical problems
Intervention & Math
The Intervention teacher works collaboratively with the general education teacher and the results from the i-Ready diagnostic to determine how best to support students in improving their mathmatical learning. Our Intervention teacher uses small group instruction to target specific foundational math skills like Numbers and Operations, Algebra and Algebraic Thinking, Measurement and Data and Geometry.
Social Studies
(Grades K-5th): Social Studies is an important part of the curriculum at Our Community School. To understand how human beings function within groups and with one another to govern their world and to create cultures that sustain us is fundamental learning for all people. All of the academic skill people learn in reading, writing and problem solving must be applied to real human problems in the world around us or there is no purpose in developing the skill. At OCS our social studies curriculum is integrated with other content areas as much as possible to give meaningful context for the study. In order to make our social studies curriculum relevant and important in our students’ lives, we also incorporate the five following elements: field trips, geography, civics, social justice and service learning.
Science
(Grades K-5th): Science—and therefore science education—is central to the lives of all Americans. A high-quality science education means that students will develop an in-depth understanding of content and develop key skills—communication, collaboration, inquiry, problem solving, and flexibility—that will serve them throughout their educational and professional lives. Consistent with the OCS school-wide philosophy of experiential, child-centered learning, OCS’s science program focuses on students using the scientific process to engage in solving real life scientific problems. The CA NGSS are organized by these categories: Life Sciences, Earth and Space Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Engineering Design. Teachers create units of study based on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).
Structure and Arrangement of the CA NGSS
- The CA NGSS are standards, not curriculum. Standards are goals that reflect what a student should know and be able to do. The CA NGSS does not dictate the manner or methods by which the standards are taught. The standards contain Performance Expectations (PEs) written in a way that express the concepts and skills to be performed but still leave curricular and instructional decisions to local educational agencies, districts, schools and teachers.
- Every CA NGSS standard has three dimensions: Disciplinary Core Ideas (DCI) scientific and engineering practices (SEP), and cross-cutting concepts (CCC). SEPs and CCCs are designed to be taught in context, integrated with multiple core concepts throughout each year. Engineering is integrated with the science standards through the Engineering Technology Standards (ETS), also called the Engineering Design Standards. These standards are arranged in grade bands: kindergarten through second, three through five, six through eight, and nine through twelve. The ETS standards emphasize core ideas of engineering design and technology applications.
- The Topic arrangement of the standards organizes the standards by “big ideas”. Topic examples include, but are not limited to: Chemical Reactions, Structure and Function, or Space Systems. Both arrangements support connections across the grade and between grade levels, and contain California Common Core State Standards (CA CCSS) connections: English Language Arts Standards (ELA) and Mathematics Standards.